History Main / AcceptableProfessionalTargets

!This trope is [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=16749697730.54005700 under discussion]] in the Administrivia/TropeRepairShop.
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->'''Dromiceiomimus''': Oh! Why don't PROFESSION MEMBERS play hide and seek?
->'''T-Rex''': Why?
->'''Dromiceiomimus''': Because no one will look for them!
->'''T-Rex''': Hah! Ouch for PROFESSION MEMBERS, and their stereotype!
-->-- ''Webcomic/DinosaurComics''

Subtrope of AcceptableTargets, there are certain characters that are doomed to be mocked (and have a general negative characterization) just for their career choice. Please do not add particular cases to the examples listed here. Compare with KlingonScientistsGetNoRespect.

----
!!Examples include:
[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Door to Door Salesman]]
!!Door to Door Salesman
Before the world was full of internet ads, telemarketers, and TV commercials the best way to sell your product is to get a group of individuals to go door to door talking and selling what your product is. back then this kind of characuster was as common as cockroaches and was treated as such. Cartoons and movies treated them at best annoying failure who try to stick there nose into others lives to sell you there unless product and at worse a sleazy conman who gets off in robbing others in there hard earn cash.

This kind of character was once very common in films and cartoons in the 20s to 60s but as more ani soliciting laws get past and the growing abundance of better ways to sell your products these characters are very rare in this day and age. But when they still pop up from time to time and with good examples of this trope being almost non existent.

[[AC: Literature]]
* Literature/TheMetamorphosis IS about a Salesman who wakes up to find that he has turned into a strange creature and slowly learns that his family doesn't need him anymore.

[[AC: Film]]
* Film/TheThreeStooges A lot of shorts have the three be Salesmen and make all kinds of trouble while messing with others.
** Dizzy Doctors is about Curly Larry and Moe going around to sell there new fangled medicine and making problems where every they use it.

[[AC: Theatre]]
* Theatre/DeathOfASalesman Is a very prime example of how this job can take a turn for the worst no matter how good you can be.

[[AC:ComicBooks]]
* Creator/ECComics Haunt of Fear has the story ''Death Of Some Salesmen'' about a good natured salesman who ends up in the house of a back-water couple who has had enough of being sold bad products by other salesman.

[[AC: Series]]
* Series/TalesFromTheCrypt The TV adaptation of [[Recap/TalesFromTheCryptS5E1DeathOfSomeSalesmen the above comic]] [[AdaptationalVillainy makes the salesman]] a ConMan who sells fake cemetery plots to relatives of recently deceased people and doesn't care that he's taking what's left from old windows.

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* WesternAnimation/BettyBoop Has The Hot Air Salesman (1937) witch is about a Salesman who harass Betty and the nabarhood into buying all kinds of crazy products. In the end not even Betty can take his reckless behavior.
[[/folder]]


[[folder:Lawyers]]
!![[AmoralAttorney Lawyers]]
Since they're trained to defend anyone, even if their client is [[ObviouslyEvil obviously guilty]] (or to prosecute anyone, even if the defendant is blatantly innocent), lawyers are often labelled as prolific, greedy liars who will [[LoopholeAbuse find even the most vague of loopholes]] in the law to get a good verdict. While there are, of course, [[Series/BostonLegal positive]] [[Franchise/AceAttorney portrayals]] [[Literature/ToKillAMockingbird in media]], such as ''Franchise/PerryMason'', they are still normally villains by default, and the source of many morality-based jokes. See EvilLawyerJoke. It also doesn't help that the media is full of FrivolousLawsuit stories. Usually defense attorneys or corporate lawyers get the brunt of this, but even prosecutors and other less prominent examples will get this treatment, with the former often portrayed as [[KnightTemplar zealots obsessed with "purging" all traces of criminality everywhere]] and the latter as literal [[RulesLawyer Rules Lawyers]]. The fact that any evil lawyer defending a guilty client or prosecuting an innocent is always paired against another lawyer trying to do the inverse seems to go over everyone's heads. In real life, most of the "villainous" behaviors of lawyers are in fact fully justified, such as their being willing to defend anyone (a legal defense is a basic human right that everyone is entitled to, and in fact the ''goal'' of lawyers is to be an {{amoral|attorney}} LawfulNeutral PunchClockHero / PunchClockVillain depending on who they are representing)[[note]]Not to mention that many criminal attorneys, at least in the U.S., are court-appointed public defenders ([[Main/MirandaRights "If you can not afford an attorney one will be provided to you at no cost"]]) and don't get to choose their clients[[/note]] and apparent money-grubbing behaviors (being a lawyer is ''expensive''. Even if you ignore what they pay for legal school, a lawyer working on contingency is paying a ''lot'' of legal fees on your behalf and so, if he wins him taking a good 30% to 40% of your winnings is to cover that. If he loses, he's just out all the money and time he put in. Also, their refusal to give free legal advice is because, if they give you legal advice, you are now their client and they are now obligated to defend you).

[[AC:Film]]
%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample * ''Film/{{Hook}}'': "KILL THE LAWYER!"
* Deconstructed in ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartII'': The ever-futuristic world of 2015 has all lawyers abolished. Seems like a joke on the profession... but Doc Brown noted that due to this, Marty's future children get long, ''long'' prison sentences for minor crimes.
* ''Film/IndependenceDay'' has an offhand mockery of the profession when David told a coworker that everyone close to them must escape New York City before the aliens attack. The coworker's response? "I better call my brother! I better call my housekeeper! I better call my lawyer!.... Nah, forget my lawyer!"
* It was lost on very few viewers that the most ignominious death in ''Film/JurassicPark''--the one involving the portapotty--was reserved for the lawyer. Who is referred to by Hammond as "the blood sucking lawyer"[[note]]Interestingly in the novel the blood sucking lawyer not only survives to the end but is actually a heroic figure, helping Dr. Grant guide Tim and Lex through the jungle. The "abandons the kids and gets eaten by a T-rex" death (though not while on the toilet) was reserved for a character that didn't appear in the film[[/note]].
[[AC: Literature]]
* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'':
** The Nac Mac Feegle carry swords that glow in the presence of lawyers, much as elvish swords in ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' glow in the presence of orcs. Pictsies clearly consider them such Acceptable Targets that they craft weapons to hit said Targets with.
** Mr. Slant, a centuries old [[OurZombiesAreDifferent Zombie]] who is undisputed Head of the Guild of Lawyers, is presented as the amoral type to whom the letter of the Law means everything and the ''spirit'' of the Law is mere circumstantial evidence. It is said his reason for coming back as a Zombie was so as to be able to claim outstanding fees from errant clients. He has been seen providing the legal groundwork for a coup d'etat, so as to ensure the takeover is legally unimpeachable; but capable of unhesitatingly switching sides to defend the status quo when the revolution fails.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* ''Series/RumpoleOfTheBailey'' gives us everything from the nice ones (like Rumpole) to mercenary jerks.
** Rumpole may be one of the nice ones, but he is often pretty underhanded. If he ever went on the prosecution, he would be a monster. Fortunately, Rumpole only defends.[[note]]Except for that one time...except it was a private prosecution, and he resigned that when it turned out that the whole thing was a scheme.[[/note]]
* ''Series/{{Suits}}'' is a positive portrayal of lawyers and what they do. Or maybe it's not always so positive. The ''protagonists'' are lawyers and while the audience is presumably supposed to be on their side, they're not always ''[[GoodIsNotNice nice]]'' (and they're certainly not always legally in the right; sometimes whether they're even ''morally'' in the right is questionable). Of course, the ''antagonists'' are often lawyers too, and to keep the audience's sympathy with the protagonists, their opponent will generally be depicted as an AmoralAttorney or at best as a WellIntentionedExtremist. Louis Litt was an antagonist to start with, but later seasons have shown that he's not really a bad guy, he just cares more about the reputation of himself, his firm, and his profession than he cares about social niceties or politeness, so he's a bit of an ogre to anyone he thinks isn't performing up to an extremely high standard.
* ''Series/LALaw'' saw a similar distribution.
* Averted when it comes to state prosecutors, which, thanks to shows like ''Series/LawAndOrder'', are practically seen as heroes.
** ''Series/LawAndOrder'' is often seen as the first subversion to an even older image. ''Perry Mason'' depicted poor, ineffectual Hamilton Burger who was a PunchClockVillain at best and a SmugSnake, always eager to send people to the gas chamber at absolute worst.
** Most of the defense attorneys get a fair shake as well, because at ''worst'' they're seen doing their best for their client, and at best they can be seen objecting to overzealous prosecution or taking the case because they believe that some Constitutional rights (usually Free Speech) are being infringed upon.
*** Prosecuting attorneys have been getting more and more of a bad rap as of late and are now frequently portrayed as amoral, sociopathic crooks who care more about their own perceived effectiveness and less about playing by the rules, which leads to [[DestroyTheEvidence the withholding of evidence harmful to their case]], [[FrameUp fabrication of helpful evidence]], [[JuryAndWitnessTampering witness coercion]], [[DestroyTheEvidence the "loss" of crucial paperwork]], and, if they're ''really'' nasty, backroom deals with judges and jurors.
* Also averted in ''Series/{{JAG}}'', where the military lawyers are the really good and honorable guys.
** However, ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' played this trope majorly straight in season seven with M. Alison Hart, whom the fen nicknamed "Bitchy [=McLawyer=]" because her only real purpose on the show was to use her legal services to hinder the team's investigations wherever possible. And she had serious [[BelligerentSexualTension BST]] with Gibbs.
*** The depiction of lawyers in ''NCIS'' is even more funny, because usually, if a client goes so far as to request a lawyer's assistance against the very often unfair and unprofessional treatment by the agents, these lawyers are mostly ineffective, even though some [[EpicFail try to]] depict traditional [[AmoralAttorney evil lawyers]].
* Averted in the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' pilot, which shows the AfterTheEnd 21st century, where the society got rid of all lawyers. Of course, the so-called "court of facts" is, in fact, nothing more than a KangarooCourt, where the accused are already assumed to be guilty and must prove their innocence with hard evidence.
** Also, in ''Measure of a Man'', Picard butts heads with a Starfleet JAG because he feels she showed excess zeal during his court martial. This largely amounts to being Picard's bias as she's shown to be perfectly reasonable during the proceedings against Data. (Although the ''Literature/StarTrekTheLostEra'' novel ''The Buried Age'' shows that he was right about the court martial — it also has her superior at that court martial having to remind her that it's not the 20th century, and their goal is to find the truth, not win at all costs. Apparently, it's a lesson she's learnt since.)
%%* [[Series/BreakingBad Better call]] [[Series/BetterCallSaul Saul!]]

[[AC:{{Music}}]]
* "Franchise/JurassicPark" by Music/{{Weird Al|Yankovic}} (parody of "[=MacArthur=] Park") has the lyric: ''"A huge tyrannosaurus ate our lawyer, well I suppose that proves they're really not all bad."'' Though [[WordOfGod Weird Al]] has stated it's left to the listener's interpretation whether it's the lawyer or the tyrannosaurus that's "not all bad."
* 'Get Over It' by The Eagles has the lyric "Let's kill all the lawyers. Kill them tonight".
** Which, of course, is a paraphrase of a quote from ''Henry VI'' by William Shakespeare.

[[AC:{{Theatre}}]]
* The (in)famous "Let's kill all the lawyers." line from ''Henry VI, Part 2''. Sometimes mistaken for a subversion — (the line is spoken by a follower of the unsympathetic rebel) — but is in fact the punchline of an extended joke about the "perfect" society: free food, free clothes, free beer, and NO LAWYERS!
** Followed by a more sober reflection on the evils of law without conscience:
--->"Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? that parchment, being scribbled o'er, should undo a man? Some say the bee stings: but I say, 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal once to a thing, and I was never mine own man since."

[[AC:VideoGames]]
* ''{{VideoGame/Scribblenauts}}'' has this as an EasterEgg — in one later level, the player has to get a group of bad people into heaven. If the player uses the magnifying glass to identify which objects they are, they will find out that one of them is a lawyer.
* The ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' series inverts this with prosecutors, who by and large care more about getting a guilty verdict and maintaining a perfect record than actually finding the guilty party. In "Justice for All", Phoenix considers all prosecutors to be this way without exception, and bitterly complains about how the prosecutors persist even though they know they're not in the right, making it more difficult for him to defend his clients. It helps that you play as the defense attorney, and your clients [[spoiler:(except for Matt Engarde)]] are [[GoodLawyersGoodClients always innocent]].
** Though a lot of Phoenix's bad attitude towards prosecutors in the second game is related more to [[spoiler:Edgeworth's disappearance at the end of the first game, which Phoenix considered a personal betrayal]] than any actual antagonism towards the profession. He doesn't express any such thoughts in the first game or the ones after ''Justice For All''.
* From the manual of ''Gateway II: Homeworld'''s "Legal Stuff" section (paraphrased, since the section says it mustn't be copied!)
-->> We know the legal stuff below is unconscionable, but so are our lawyers.
** The manual goes on to repeat the joke about New Jersey having more toxic waste than lawyers — because it got first choice.
* In VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas, crooked cop Tenpenny tells CJ to call 555-WETIP and frame someone for drug possession.
-->'''CJ''': Hey motherfucker, the code of the streets is that I don't snitch! I don't give a fuck if it kills you, me, my brother. Street cats don't call no cops!\\
'''Tenpenny''': Carl, he's a D.A.!\\
'''CJ''': ...yeah? Well, where I go find him?

[[AC:WebComics]]
* ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'':
** [[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff700/fv00668.htm Some robots must harm humans, to prevent their harming othes. Early models attacked lawyers and telemarketers on sight. Inexplicably, their sales went up.]]
** [[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff900/fv00840.htm If rats don't become lawyers when they grow up, all the more reason to let them live.]]
** [[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff400/fv00372.htm Sam likes lawyers. They make him look good by comparison.]]
* ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'' [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2000-10-01 features a discussion]] between the hive-minded lawyer snakes and the author in which the snakes find real life lawyers scary. (Their task at the moment was to go blow up a ship.)
* Subverted by [[https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/f1t0kj/three_wishes/ this comic]] about a man offered three wishes by a genie, who spends one wish to rid the world of lawyers. The genie then refuses to honor his offer for two more wishes, [[HoistByHisOwnPetard because it's not like the man can sue him now]].

[[AC:WebOriginal]]
* In "20 Haunting Halloween Facts" by WebVideo/MatthewSantoro, Matthew says that there are real-life vampires, who drink people's blood and claim to drain people's lives. He then says that they're better known by their day name of "lawyers".

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* In the ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS4E21MargeInChains Marge in Chains]]", sleazy failure lawyer Lionel Hutz says "Can you imagine a world without lawyers?" The scene shifts into his imagination, which shows a peaceful utopia where peoples of all colors and cultures are holding hands and singing. Fade back to Hutz, who shudders in horror at the thought.
* An episode of the short-lived ''WesternAnimation/EvilConCarne'' (which originally aired alongside the much-better-known ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'') involved General Skarr being exposed to [[ArtisticLicenseBiology a devolving ray which causes him to change into many different animals]], including a skunk (which he detests being called). Immediately after, he changes again and Hector exclaims, "No, he's worse than a dirty skunk! He's a lawyer!" and, indeed, he's now a lawyer with a suit and briefcase and everything.

[[AC:Real Life]]
* In Japan, the lawyers are okay, it's the ''judges'' who are demonized.
** Which is why the judge from the aforementioned ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' games is portrayed as such a moron. And why the localisations play up the CloudCuckooLander aspects of the Judge to make him endearing instead of merely being senile. Judges tend to be well-respected in the west, unless they're obviously corrupt.
* Dick Cheney has achieved what many Americans can only imagine: he shot a lawyer in the face with a shotgun, then got the ''lawyer'' to apologize. And he '''still''' doesn't smile!
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Finance positions]]
!!Accountants
If you see an accountant in fiction, chances are they're dull, boring, and completely structured, being unable to relax or think outside the box. Many a story begins with an accountant discontent with their career and wanting to break out of the humdrum of cubicle life. If male, they're prime fodder for the ManicPixieDreamGirl. It seems the only accounts who ''enjoy'' their jobs are the ones scheming with their employer to help circumvent income tax laws or cover up illegal financial activities. They may or may not also be predators looking for NouveauRiche individuals who suddenly need to manage large amounts of money, or elderly estate-holders who might be less able to keep track of their assets, with the intent of funneling money from them. Closely related jobs are not exempt: [[IntimidatingRevenueService Auditors and Tax Collectors are unnervingly strict, heartless and unforgiving]]. The reason this perception is so pervasive is because fiction writers are bound by their own biases; to someone who makes their living with their creativity, the idea of working in a cubicle crunching numbers all day would be a FateWorseThanDeath.

[[AC:ComicBooks]]
* An exception is [[Comicbook/XMen Iceman]], of all people. Despite being the team joker, he worked as an accountant between stints with the X-Men and the Defenders, and is the school math teacher.

[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* Harold Crick in ''Film/StrangerThanFiction'' is a tax worker who is definitely dull, boring, and completely structured, but ''not'' heartless, and is in fact portrayed as a good man.
** And his co-workers, while portrayed as kinda geeky, are a lot more lively than Harold, implying it's him, not the job.
* Mr. Lau in ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' is the scheming sort of accountant, attempting to blackmail his employers.
** One compelling reason he was "hired" was because he relocated all of the various mafia's money. He took it from their banks ''without their knowledge'' in anticipation of a police raid.
** He is also banking on the fact that "Hong Kong would never extradite [a Chinese national]". Batman doesn't recognize national sovereignty and the hurdles of due process.
* Leopold Bloom in ''Film/TheProducers'' musical and film was a textbook example of the dull, boring accountant as well as the scheming accountant (although for him it was more of a mathematical activity than anything else), but his time with Creator/ZeroMostel and/or Creator/NathanLane livened him up considerably. Which is understandable.
* ''Film/ShallowGrave'': "David may be an accountant, but at least he tries". David's boringness is continually [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] until David gets [[BewareTheNiceOnes a whole lot less boring]] later on. In the words of his boss:
--> '''Lumsden:''' Oh, it's unfashionable, I know, but yes, we're methodical, yes, we're diligent, yes, we're serious, and where's the crime in that? Why not shout it from the rooftops? Yes, maybe sometimes we're a wee bit boring, but by God we get the job done, and that's why I think you fit in here.
--> '''David Stephens:''' I'm boring?
--> '''Lumsden:''' You get the job done.
* The "socially inept and unable to think outside the box" trope was heavily invoked on poor Louis in ''Film/{{Ghostbusters 1984}}''. He even threw a party at his apartment and invited only business contacts because he could write the chips and dip off as a business expense and was loudly explaining this to his guests as a sound tactic.
* Subverted in the "Crimson Permanent Assurance" sketch from ''Film/MontyPythonsTheMeaningOfLife'', when a group of insurance accountants overthrow their masters and turn to piracy.
* ''Film/TheParoleOfficer'' is built around the protagonist trying to clear his name after he sees "a man strangle a human being — well, an accountant, anyway."

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
* Crrator/DaveBarry's ''Claw Your Way to the Top'' has a chapter called "How Finance Works." It begins with this warning:
-->This stuff is deadly dull, as is illustrated by accountants. You never hear people say: "Let's have some ''fun'' tonight! Let's go find some ''accountants!''" So unless you have no choice, you should skip this chapter. I myself am going to require powerful illegal stimulants to write it.
** Also from Dave Barry: four portraits are shown with the caption "Which of these is the millionaire? Which is the accountant? Which is the jerk?" The answer is that Mr. B is all three: a millionaire accountant jerk. (It then goes on to state that the other three are slime, so perhaps accountants don't come off ''quite'' so bad here.)
* One of the most despised and feared villains in the Literature/{{Discworld}} setting are the Auditors. They are essentially universal accountants tasked with keeping tabs on everything — and [[OmnicidalManiac they would prefer to extinguish all life and random factors in the universe]], because lifeless rocks tumbling around in predictable orbits are very tidy and manageable.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* ''[[Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus Monty Python]]'' has quite a few sketches including panicky, mousy chartered accountants. Perhaps best portrayed in the "Job Agency" sketch, where one initially wants to be a lion-tamer but, after finding out he was thinking of ''aardvarks'', decides for something more tame... then decides "I'll think about it".
--> '''Counsellor:''' Yes, but you see, Mr. Anchovy, your report here says that you are an extremely dull person. Our experts describe you as an appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company and irrepressibly drab and awful. And whereas in most professions these would be considerable drawbacks, in chartered accountancy they're a positive boon.
* Evan from ''Series/RoyalPains'' is portrayed in lacking common sense, goofy, and annoying, and in fact [[spoiler:loses all of [=HankMed=]'s money at one point]]. But he's still a good accountant.
* Ted from ''Series/QueerAsFolk''. He is the most boring and uptight of the main characters, and also happens to be the oldest, if only by a few years. He is clearly unhappy, and tries out other jobs for a while (and also slipping into drug addiction, coming seriously close to destroying his whole life), before Brian asks him to come work for his new company, and after that he seems happy being Brian's accountant/personal [[BuffySpeak advisor... thing.]]
* In ''Series/ParksAndRecreation'', Ben is an accountant, and is constantly made fun of for being nerdy and numbers-obsessed, though he's still generally personable and likeable. A running gag is that he repeatedly finds himself working at a local accounting firm and is, by far, the coolest guy there.

[[AC:{{Webcomics}}]]
* Subverted in ''Webcomic/{{Rhapsodies}}'' with Brian who, while certainly socially inept, is a manic force of nature.

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* Another exception is Don from ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'', who is friendly, charismatic, and eager to give everyone [[ManHug "sugar."]]
* Cyril Figgis, the ISIS accountant and unlikely field agent in ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}''. Awkward, rigid, and often ButtMonkey for both enemies and colleagues. His smoothest infiltration was to introduce himself to a drug lord simply as ''The Accountant'', suggest he was sent to audit the books, then imply that he could assist him in embezzling from his boss for a little bit of the action.
* The ClockKing from ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' was a rigidly structured accountant. The ''one time'' he deviated from his set schedule, DisasterDominoes ensued and he lost his business and gained a grudge.
* In one ''WesternAnimation/VeggieTales'' SillySong, Larry is waiting for Santa with cookies, only to be accosted on two separate occasions by a Viking and a bank robber who threaten to do what you'd expect. Larry implores them to relax a little and offers them a cookie "because it's Christmas!" When an IRS agent appears, he's barely begun his introduction when Larry slams the door in face. [[AsideGlance And smirks at the camera.]]

!![[MorallyBankruptBanker Bankers]]
Bankers have always generally been portrayed as greedy and amoral, believing they can always get their way if they throw enough money at the problem (and it will rarely be their money they're throwing). The recent financial crisis has done little to improve their popularity. Typically, this mostly applies to [[CorruptCorporateExecutive higher-ups]] in the banking industry, while the local teller attending the [[TakeANumber slow-moving queue]] is generally closer to ServiceSectorStereotypes.
* However, beware of running afoul of OnceAcceptableTargets, given [[UnfortunateImplications the strong associations banking conspiracies have with anti-Jewish sentiment]] in Europe.
** In American Media, they tend to be aged white {{Fat Bastard}}s.
** It has taken on a new lease of life in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis a.k.a. the Great Recession, starting from around 2007. Since then, it's shifted up a gear with the Occupy Wall Street movement, with "Wall Street" itself becoming a dirty word or easy punchline. See ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'', where the ''demon'' Crowley is seen shouting "This isn't Wall Street, this is HELL! [[EvenEvilHasStandards We have a little something called integrity!]]"

[[AC: Film]]
* The banker in ''Film/SpiderMan2'' tries pocketing some cash from a customer's life savings right in the middle of a robbery conducted by Doctor Octopus. As he'd earlier denied Aunt May a loan so she could keep a roof over her head, it's not hard to laugh when she gives him a whack.

!![[EvilDebtCollector Debt Collectors]]
Reputed for being rude, nasty, low life thugs who get their kicks out of bullying people who are suffering hard times. The fact that many of them throughout history have been corrupt and/or working in league with criminals doesn't help their reputation in the slightest. For more information, see the linked article.

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
* An aversion is the Murakami short story "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo," where the main character is a debt collector, who is an average salaryman, and is a total badass because he's so very calm. Also, he helps the titular Super-Frog save Tokyo.

[[AC:Live Action TV]]
* They're a recurring enemy in ''Series/{{Pizza}}'', constantly hounding the protagonists who either work for next to nothing or live on the dole.

!!Fiscal Advisors
This is done very rarely because they allow to decrease debts, but some works outright like to mock them for helping corrupt people that deserve to pay high debts. Of course, in works where those people are mocked, the debt collectors are usually portrayed as sympathetic, hardworking, and fair men.

[[AC: Film]]
* ''Film/FrippouillardEtCompagnie'' is one of those films. It goes about a clothing store manager that hopes to have low debts, so he goes to a fiscal advisor. The fiscal advisor advises him to do all kinds of psychological tactics to manipulate the debt collector into decreasing the taxes. All those plans fail and the shop owner eventually has to give him 15 million Italian lira, but since the debt collector is such a friendly guy, he learns him how to gain some extra money in the casino.

!!{{Loan Shark}}s
Pretty much the same deal as the EvilDebtCollector above, except these guys don't give a damn about any laws, much less the FDCPA or other debt-collection laws in their general area. They will stop at ''nothing'' to shake you down for what they think they're owed, and they're not above some pretty heinous tactics, such as [[IHaveYourWife kidnapping]] or [[ColdBloodedTorture worse]].

!!Stockbrokers
Overgrown [[FratBro Frat Bros]] who party, do drugs (cocaine is popular, especially during the eighties) and hire hookers with their clients' money. Stockbrokers are portrayed as both cold-hearted, for abandoning stocks of failing companies even if it means clients will lose money and employees will lose jobs, and naïve, for rushing to buy stocks of fraudulent companies and inflating their price. The Wall Street stock exchange is portrayed as a chaotic free-for-all with brokers screaming and clutching bills, causing prices to soar or plummet for no apparent reason. In the bathrooms, brokers can partake in some insider trading and do more drugs. Stockbrokers are also blamed for market crashes, and are targets of SuicideAsComedy jokes. Additional underworld activities may include money laundering.
* In ''Film/TheWolfOfWallStreet'', A New York stockbroker recounts to the audience how he made his fortune through shady (and outright illegal) stock manipulations, and the hedonistic drug/sex-fueled lifestyle he built with that fortune. His downfall begins when he is investigated by the SEC and FBI, but he refuses to leave the life he has built. They use a drug dealer and a SwissBankAccount to launder their illgotten windfall.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Other office jobs]]

!!Advertising Executives

->If you work in advertising or marketing... [[SuicideDare kill yourself]].
->No, seriously. This is not a joke. You're thinking, there's gonna be a joke coming — there's no fucking joke coming. You are Satan's spawn, filling the world with bile and garbage. Kill yourself.
-->-- ''Creator/BillHicks''

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* ''Series/MadMen'' of course.
* Brian from ''Series/QueerAsFolk''.

[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* In the original 1967 version of ''Film/{{Bedazzled 1967}}'', [[{{Satan}} The Devil himself]] admits [[TakeThat he invented advertising]].

[[AC:Real Life]]
* Old joke among advertising execs: "Don't tell my mother I work in advertising, she thinks I play the piano in a brothel."
* Advertisement and journalism, which are both under the social communication umbrella, are acceptable targets to each other: publicists are greedy and "sell lies", while journalists believe they're "selling the truth".

!!Economists
They practice one of the [[HardOnSoftScience softest sciences]] ''and'' have the potential to be influential on a national scale, making scientists of every other discipline hate them. At the same time, non-professionals don't like them because economics is so tightly entwined with [[BanOnPolitics the very polarizing subject]] of [[AcceptablePoliticalTargets politics]].
* It doesn't help their image that most of the field of economics is (perhaps [[TruthInTelevision rightly]]) seen as largely guesswork.
* Even economists themselves acknowledge this negative view of their profession, calling their field of study [[SelfDeprecation "the dismal science"]].

!!Engineers
Maybe it's because WritersCannotDoMath or [[ArtisticLicensePhysics failed physics]], but the stereotypical image of skinny men in elbow-length dress shirts, wearing thick-rimmed glasses and playing with a slide rule (think NASA engineers in the 60s-70s) seems to stick in people's minds. There are exceptions to this / the image is potentially being reversed, however.
* Among physicists, engineers are treated as a bit of a dumb hick cousin. (Who admittedly can actually ''make'' something useful, but it's not brought up in polite company.)

!![[CorruptCorporateExecutive Executives]]
Suits of all kinds can fit here, but the usual ones are working in a morally dubious industry (oil companies, cigarette companies, etc.). At ''best'', they're portrayed as completely morally bankrupt.

[[AC:VideoGames]]
* A rare, almost complete subversion is [[HonestCorporateExecutive David Sarif]] from ''VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution''. The man believes in the potential of humanity's advncement through cybernetic augmentation for the good of everyone, pays well, and after his firm suffers a major attack with several people killed, he tells his employees that he will personally talk to anyone who needs moral support; and while he does turn his chief of security into a SuperSoldier without explicit consent, it's shown that Sarif thinks he's doing Adam Jensen, the protagonist, a favour. PLUS all this happens in a CyberPunk setting, the most unlikely of places possible.

!!Managers and their close cousins Consultants
The former are depicted as talentless [[ExecutiveMeddling meddlers]] that are to blame for everything that happens in any company. They may even be the PointyHairedBoss. The latter are usually scammers that get paid loads of money without doing any actual work.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* ''Series/HouseOfLies'' is about a group of consultants with only one goal in mind when they work with clients: convince the clients that they absolutely need them, no matter the cost.
* ''Series/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'' has the villain, Count Olaf do "the odd bit of consultant work," as a means to get money. He uses his skills as a consultant to trick Mr. Poe into handing the Baudelaire children over to him. When informed of this, Gustav's response is
-->'''Gustav:''' A consultant? Why would anybody ever listen to a consultant?

[[AC:NewspaperComics]]
* ''ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}'' is probably a TropeCodifier, having named the PointyHairedBoss trope. Practically everyone at [[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield whatever company the cast works at]] who isn't a line engineer (sometimes even them) is incompetent, evil, or both.

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* WesternAnimation/{{Daria}} Morgendorffer's father Jake is a self-employed consultant who is always one agitation away from a nervous breakdown due to no self-respecting business needing his advice (plus some deep-seated childhood traumas). When he finds a new job working for an internet company, he reveals his complete ineptitude at performing a white-collar job that requires actual skill.

!!Real Estate Agents
Their job is to sell property, no matter how run-down or decrepit that property is, so naturally, they'll be accused of being liars in the media. It doesn't help that, in the UK at least, they are almost completely unregulated, and any crook can become one. A consumer watchdog set up an estate agency in central London with £143 and some fake properties and THAT WAS IT. In the US, it's far more heavily regulated, but there are plenty who seriously test those rules. While there are lots of honest agents who obey both the letter and spirit of the law, there are plenty of sleazeballs who will do just about anything that they think they can get away with just to get some extra cash in their pocket.

[[AC:Literature]]
* In ''The Literature/SnarkoutBoys and the Avocado of Death'', the thought waves projected by the Alligatron, an [[OrganicTechnology avocado-based supercomputer]], is all that prevents alien thought forms from taking over all licensed real-estate brokers in the United States. [[spoiler:In the end, the Alligatron gets eaten by a gorilla, and when the protagonist points out what this means about every licensed realtor in America, the response is, "I suppose we'll just have to live with it."]]

[[AC:Live Action Television]]
* On ''Series/TheCloser'', when Brenda and Fritz want to sell Brenda's house and buy a new one together, they enlist the very sleazy and annoying estate agent Gary. While it's never specifically stated that he's crooked or dishonest, his CatchPhrase ''is'', after all, [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial "Gary doesn't lie!"]]

[[AC:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' had Marge become one in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS9E9RealtyBites Realty Bites]]", where she's mentored by [[AmoralAttorney Lionel Hutz]], who utilizes MetaphoricallyTrue for any potential sale.
-->'''Hutz''': There's "the truth" (shakes head) and "the truth." (smiles wide) Let me show you. (shows pictures of homes for sale)\\
'''Marge''': It's awfully small.\\
'''Hutz''': I'd call it "cozy".\\
'''Marge''': [[TheAllegedHouse That's dilapidated.]]\\
'''Hutz''': Rustic.\\
'''Marge''': That house is on fire!\\
'''Hutz''': [[CrossesTheLineTwice Motivated seller!]]
* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' real estate is shown to be a job so easy to do that Cartman's mother was able to get one despite having no talent outside of hardcore pornography. The joke is taken even further when Cartman decides to set up his own real estate business, which manages to give his mother's firm some stiff competition. For an extra laugh, every real estate salesman assumes the same haughty pose in their professional photos, which leaves them with backward-curving spines.

!![[InhumanResources The HR Department]]
TruthInTelevision - HR are responsible for vetting job applications, usually without any knowledge of what skills are needed to do that job. So they tend to be responsible for stopping you from getting a job you could do in your sleep, hiring obvious morons, or firing the best worker in the department for some imaginary infraction. And they're never on your side; any offer they make to help you is all just to make corporate happy about being covered against lawsuits and potentially finding a way to drop some cubiclelander who isn't thrilled about being crammed into a chair for eight hours a day to do pointless work for insulting pay while surrounded by assholes. An observation runs "People who can do the job, do the job. People who are otherwise unemployable end up working in Human Resources."

[[AC:LiveActionTelevision]]
* ''Series/TheOfficeUS'' has the eternal feud between manager Michael Scott and HR rep Toby Flenderson, which for added laughs is implied to be the case with ''every'' manager and HR rep in their company. Michael paints Toby as some fun-killing ghoul who will try to make his life miserable out of spite when all Toby is doing is keeping his racist, sexist boss from tarnishing the company's reputation. For what it's worth, the rest of the staff like Toby just fine, though any one of them will turn on him if they ever become manager.

!!Salespersons
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 a refrigerator to Eskimos") and will not take "No" for an answer. As far as everyone else is concerned, the sales department is a den of iniquity staffed with inveterate liars with absolutely zero integrity who will say anything to anyone if they think it'll get them a sale, and no matter how many lies they tell and how many impossible promises they make, the only way that they'll have to face actual consequences instead of getting a slap on the wrist or being able to throw someone else under the bus is if they do something that could potentially get the company sued.

[[AC:LiveActionTelevision]]
* ''Series/TheOfficeUS'': The sales team are all shown to be varying degrees of lazy, immature and socially inept underneath their presentability. This is actually depicted as a case of BunnyEarsLawyer, as anyone who thinks they can just walk into a sales position is shown to be out of their depth.

!!Architects

While they tend to receive a generally positive portrayal, they are one of the first stops when choosing to a pretentious, artsy professional; the opposite of the stereotypical engineer, in essence.

[[AC:LiveActionTelevision]]
* Ted Mosby in ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'' embodies the pretentious hipster vibe that would be expected of a New York-based architect.

!!Graphic Designers

Pretty much the same boat as architects, with the occasional added conviction that it's "not a ''real'' job". If male, often portrayed by the US media as obnoxiously CampGay, and by the UK media as {{geek}}s.

!![[{{Salaryman}} People with mundane desk jobs]]
At best, they're seen as restless and wanting more out of life. At worst, they're seen as vapid, mindless pod people or useless lazy paper-pushers who get paid far too much to sit around browsing Website/YouTube and watching porn, and if they have ambition, they will be self-absorbed ladder climbers who will gleefully stab people in the back and use their hard work for their own gain before throwing them under the bus.

[[AC:LiveActionTelevision]]
* Colin Robinson from ''Series/WhatWeDoInTheShadows2019'' is a breed of vampire that feeds on human emotions. He works a non-descript job for a non-descript firm and gets his fill by engaging his coworkers in idle chit-chat, which kills whatever passion they may have had for their job. According to Colin Robinson, his breed of vampire are far more common than traditional vampires, implying that they're the real reason white-collar workers tend to feel drained by their humdrum professions.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Manual Labor Jobs (Blue-collar)]]

!!Plumbers
With the exception of [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Mario]] (whose profession is rarely mentioned), plumbers in media are dumb rednecks with poor hygiene. Who have never heard of a belt... or long shirts.
* Or/and are like other tradesmen (electricians, builders... ) portrayed as rip-off merchants always willing to overcharge or use delaying tactics ("Oh, we haven't got that part in stock, it will take a few days") to bump up the costs if they are being paid by the hour. Not to mention to charge an arm and a leg for what looks like a very simple repair.
* Or frequently have CheatingWithTheMilkman-type affairs with their clients' wives.
* In the Swedish movie ''Drömkåken'' ("The Dream House"), the protagonist is at one point bullied by a whole crew of craftsmen who insult him, tear out a large part of the floor, and spend their worktime (which they expect to be paid for by the hour) talking on the phone. When the protagonist mentions that he may have difficulties paying for everything due to losing his job, they immediately walk out... and stick him with the bill for their unfinished work. He later fixes up the whole house (including the busted floor) with only some help and motivation from a friend, implying that the craftsmen were deliberately exaggerating the situation.
* Two auto mechanics try to stiff Stanley in ''Film/TheMask'', making him sign an unpriced bill and making a bet on whether they can trick him into paying for an imaginary engine part ''while he's in earshot''. They later get their humiliating comeuppance by the Mask. (A similar situation appears in the original, much more violent [[ComicBook/TheMask comic]], although the mechanics ended up brutally killed instead.)

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' has an episode focusing on Scott Malkinson ([[RunningGag who has diabetes]]) and his father who works for a cable company. His dad is shown to be lazy, boorish and reacts with entitled rage that everyone in town would rather get their entertainment from streaming services rather than pay tv.

!!Truck Drivers
Often portrayed as unintelligent, crude, and untrustworthy. Occasionally, they are also perverts and/or womanizers. When they're not perverts, they only have paid sex, having a family or not.

[[AC:Film]]
* In ''Film/ManOfSteel'' Clark spots a truck driver sexually harassing a waitress. When Clark intervenes and politely tells the driver to stop, he throws his beer in Clark's face and tries shoving him to the ground, which of course doesn't work. When the waitress tells Clark he doesn't have to get in a fight on her behalf, Clark leaves, getting a beer can chucked at his head for his effort. Sometime later the truck driver notices his vehicle has been completely destroyed.

!!Construction Workers
Like plumbers, portrayed as ignorant idiots with the added aspect of [[ConstructionCatcalls wolf whistling, catcalling, and making lewd sexual comments]] towards vulnerable or shy women in the street below where they are working on scaffolding where they are out of the way of any repercussions.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* Parodied on ''Series/HarryAndPaul'' with the posh scaffolders who act like this only when an attractive woman walks by harassing her, but when alone have erudite conversations about things like Shakespeare or other 'posh' subjects.

!![[CrookedContractor Contractors]]
Contractors are often portrayed as lazy stick-in-the-muds who charge exorbitant amounts of money for work that is shoddy at best.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* It's a recurring gag in ''Series/FawltyTowers'' that Basil will hire dodgy workers because they're cheap. In one episode said workers were told to make a doorway for the kitchen, only to put a wall where the entrance to the dining room is meant to be. Given the upper floor has a set of steps that go up, bend around and go back down again, it's pretty clear that this isn't the first time Basil has hired these people.

!!Roofers
Within construction, roofers and roofing companies are both typically at the bottom of the totem pole. Roofers are typically viewed as sketchy, [[AddledAddict substance-addled]] {{Lower Class Lout}}s [[AddledAddict who are almost always high on any number of hard drugs]] on the jobsite and are the most likely culprits whenever someone creates an extreme safety hazard or causes an accident (often when they dump construction waste off of a roof) or when a trailer or van gets burgled or someone's tools go missing. Roofing companies, meanwhile, are viewed as the quintessential {{Crooked Contractor}}s, usually showing up with a crew of independent contractors (to get out of paying benefits and try and weasel out of worker's comp) and having broken or shoddy equipment across the board with no fall protection and dangerous modifications, who more likely than not operate as fly-by-night operations who will flee town, dissolve, lay low, and then reform as a new entity whenever you go to sue them for something they did (or when a regulatory agency goes after them).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Service and retail industry]]

!![[BurgerFool Fast-Food Chain Workers]]
At least in the United States, anybody who works at [=McDonald's=], Burger King, or some other fast-food chain is destined to be illiterate, unintelligent, and/or a stoner. "Flipping burgers at [=McDonald's=] for minimum wage" is used as a cautionary tale of what might happen if one doesn't at least finish high-school. Also, it is frowned upon to date someone who holds this type of job. Starting to become an UnaccaptableTarget as most people who work in such a position are just trying to pay their way through college, only to find out that the entry-level jobs they were studying for [[MovingTheGoalPosts now demand years of experience]], not to mention their services being in high demand during the COVID pandemic.

[[AC:{{Theatre}}]]
* In Jonathan Larson's autobiographical musical "Tick, Tick, Boom!" there's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQphuPKIWFI a song where Jon]] remembers the people who, over the years, have sneered "''This'' is why you're just a waiter," at him after he messes up their order. This to a man whose ''first completed musical won a Pulitzer Prize'', whose very name invokes WhatCouldHaveBeen in the musical theater community.

!![[SoulSuckingRetailJob Retail Workers]]
They suffer a lot, but to a lesser extent than workers of the fast food outlets. Depending on the type of retail, they are either respectable people or are illiterate illegal immigrants and mentally disabled who'll never get anywhere in life.
* To many, '''Managers of Retail Stores and fast food chains'''. Horror stories of managers and bosses exploiting people such as forcing people to clock out, then clock ''back in'' for another consecutive shift without getting a break or forcing others to come in on their one day off to cover for an absentee worker, sexually extorting employees via threats of dismissal or (for illegal immigrants) deportation, or firing good workers to avoid having to pay for benefits abound, making this somewhat justified...even if a bit cruel since not every manager or boss is like that.
* Convenience Store Clerks usually end up getting the worst sides of both general retail and fast-food as well as frequently dealing with people in a rush. However, it's common that they don't have the luxury of passing the customer off on a manager, nor the authority to bend/break rules in the customer's favor, as they're usually the only one there. If that convenience store also sells gas (especially in the U.S.) then they also become the sole human face for the entire oil industry, thus having the pleasure of dealing with every customer that has an axe to grind over the cost of fuel.

[[AC: Comic Books]]
* ''ComicStrip/{{Retail}}'': How retail workers deal with being acceptable targets is a major recurring theme in the strip (the characters all work at a department store, and at one point a few of them take a second job at a convenience store, too).

!![[HonestJohnsDealership Used Car Salesmen and telemarketers]]
Chronic rip-off merchants and the annoying disturbance of cold callers. The latter in particular, are one of the few professions that you never see a positive portrayal of.

[[AC:Literature]]
* In Literature/GoodOmens telemarketers are portrayed as actively enjoying calling people in uncomfortable situations, such as in the middle of a bath, and even holding competitions over it. One telemarketer reaches Crowley’s answering machine, where he’d just trapped Hastur, causing her entire office to be skeletonized by a swarm of demonic maggots. Which the Narrator says is demonstrative of the self-defeating nature of evil, as preventing an untold number of people from being bothered by Telemarketers has basically spread a wave of low-grade goodness over the world. [[spoiler: Unfortunately, their deaths are retconned away by Adam canceling the Apocalypse.]]

[[AC:WebComics]]
* In ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'', [[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff700/fv00668.htm some robots must harm humans, to prevent their harming others. Early models attacked lawyers and telemarketers on sight. Inexplicably, their sales went up.]]
* In ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'', Bun-bun the homicidal mini-lop was in the habit of tracking down and murdering telemarketers in the early story arcs, purely because he didn't like them.

!!Comic book/card shop owners
They're AlwaysMale, fat, [[GuysAreSlobs slovenly]], [[NoSocialSkills socially inept]] {{Insufferable Genius}}es who are invariably rude to those who don't take geekdom as SeriousBusiness... and even those who do. And then there's also the [[NerdsAreVirgins permanent virginity]] thing.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* Partially averted with Stuart from ''Series/TheBigBangTheory''. He's initially presented as reasonably successful and functional small business owner who Penny briefly dates. As the series goes on, however, his [[{{Flanderization}} characterization becomes increasingly extreme]] and unpleasant, until he's portrayed a [[PerpetualPoverty broke]], chronically depressed loser who can't get a date to save his life.
* Averted with Michael from ''Series/QueerAsFolk''. He is kind of shy and awkward at times, but otherwise very nice, cute and generally likeable. Of course, that doesn't stop [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Brian]] from making fun of his comic book addiction.

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* Comic Book Guy from ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''. Not entirely unexpected exactly.

!!Hotel employees
Front desk employees are, at best, bored teenagers who will probably screw something up, and middlemen setting you up as a mark to be robbed at worst. The bellhops do not know the meaning of UnwantedAssistance and may or may not steal something, housekeeping and security are both prone to ignoring the "Do Not Disturb" placard and barging in for something completely needless (and the housekeeping very well may just steal from you as well), and the management is inevitably going to be absolutely useless and will probably try and rip you off.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* Comes with the territory in ''Series/FawltyTowers''. Basil is an elitist, Sybil is lazy, Manuel has a shaky grasp on the English language and the chefs tend to let their emotions cloud their professionalism. Polly is the only one who can be trusted and even then she'll willingly participate in Basil's schemes.

!!Security guards
Usually portrayed as fat, bumbling, incredibly stupid losers who ''desperately'' want to be real cops but have absolutely no hope of ever getting into police academy, so they just act like power-tripping assholes instead. Their qualifications are little more than being tall, heavy-looking and occasionally [[ScaryBlackMan belonging to an ethnic group that's reputed for being tough]]. Expect [[DisproportionateRetribution greatly overblown reactions]] to just about everything and completely uncalled-for rudeness. Particularly unpleasant examples frequently add in hefty doses of racism, as well as incredibly creepy behavior around women. Frequently given the RedShirt treatment, which is rarely, if ever, considered a karmic strike against their killers (e.g. if the protagonists are sympathetic bank robbers, they can kill numerous bank guards in highly-dubious "self-defense" and somehow still be treated sympathetically by the plot).

[[AC: Comic Books]]
* One comic-book tie-in to ''Franchise/TheMatrix'' involved, uh, ''bumbling, incredibly stupid loser who desperately wants to be a real cop'' of a Bluepill security guard... except it was all PlayedForDrama: in his desire to be a real cop, he rushed to break up a fight between a Redpill and an Agent he was an accidental witness to, and the fight being way above his head, he got pointlessly killed for it.

[[AC: Film]]
* ''Film/BatmanReturns'' has two Shreck Department Store security guards who show up very briefly for no other reason than to give Catwoman [[AcceptableTargets someone socially acceptable to humiliate]]. No [[Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy Nolan-style]] ''Batman'' character nuances for even the minor players here, folks; the two guards are what anyone would expect: working-class, lecherous, and too easily [[DistractedByTheSexy distracted]] and incompetent to [[ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything even attempt to do their jobs]]. Then there's the fact that they make demeaning comments about Catwoman even though ''[[BullyingADragon they can see that she's holding a gigantic whip]]''.
-->'''Catwoman:''' You poor guys - always confusing your pistols with your privates.
* In ''Film/{{Shazam|2019}}'' Billy and Freddy slip by the school's security guard by having Billy turn into his superhero form and pose as Freddy's dad picking him up. Said security guard buys it hook line and sinker despite the suspicious circumstances.

!![[{{Bouncer}} Bouncers]]
Frequently portrayed as dimwitted, thuggish assholes who refuse to let people in for absolutely no reason whatsoever and who seem to be concerned with starting fights instead of preventing them just so they can have an excuse to beat someone half to death. Also expect them to randomly harass rule-abiding patrons minding their own business, leer at and sexually harass women, and ignore bad situations that are unfolding until they've grown out of control, which always results in someone getting seriously hurt. Particularly unsympathetic examples are frequently drugged-out, racist, or on the take from various criminal organizations, if not outright part of them. If there are good, honest bouncers working at an establishment as well, you can expect the bad ones to try and either corrupt them or force them out if they won't bend.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* Mac from ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'' is the self-styled bouncer of Paddy's Bar. He's frequently shown to be a total poser in this regard, as his muscles are just for show rather than function, his martial arts skills fall flat whenever he has to actually use them and he's unable to tell what kinds of activities are criminal.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Entertainment, Art, Sports and Mass Media]]

!!Actors & Actresses, as well as any other kind of celebrity
Always shown as living by ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney, also hated for having nearly ''every'' aspect of their life. Often shown as being a complete doofus subject to ManipulativeEditing and being targeted by "Sleazy Tabloids". (examples: Creator/ParisHilton, Music/BritneySpears, and Jade Goody, at least before [[AwfulTruth she died of cancer]])
* Celebrities are often hated for their [[SpotlightStealingSquad tendency to choke news networks]] upon deaths. Music/MichaelJackson and OJ Simpson, for example, developed {{hatedom}}s merely ''because'' people were so sick of turning on the TV and finding nothing but ''more'' news on their death or trial.
** They're also hated by people who lost loved ones to similar causes that weren't taken seriously because no-one famous had died from it yet.
* And then there are the actors/actresses that aren't famous. When they aren't portrayed like wanna-be celebrities WaitingForABreak, they're usually shown as {{Starving Artist}}s and weirdos that can break into random monologue at any moment.
* In Renaissance Times, acting, at worst, was a step or two above prostitution. This view even persisted from the 1600s up until the late 19th-early 20th century, generally due to the Puritans and their views of anything filled with frivolity and fun, or which glamorized dishonesty (since pretending to be someone else, or telling fictional stories, is a form of lying) as a horrible sin. This idea had consequences ranging from the banning of Maypoles and other light-hearted festivals to the picketing and boycotting of theaters and the refusal by English rulers to authorize or endorse playwrights.
** This also carried on across the pond thanks to the belief in the American dream and "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps", and the fact that being paid to act, dance, and sing not only appeared like laziness but was generally not a very good way of making a living (see the StarvingArtist). This view showed up a great deal in literature of the time; prominent examples would be Theodore Dreiser's ''Sister Carrie'' and Paul Laurence Dunbar's ''The Sport of the Gods'', as well as the Willa Cather short story, "A Gold Slipper".
* In Music/StephenSondheim's musicalization of ''Theatre/TheFrogs'', the opening "Invocation" addresses the gods as "You who look down on actors (and who doesn't?)"
* Many seem incapable of forming a loving long-term relationship and just marry whomever's young, hot and available. If the relationship hits a snag, they'll just trade their spouse for someone better.
* There's been a rising trend in the number of male celebrities from the 1970s who have been exposed or at least accused of sexual abuse. Creator/RickyGervais once joked that anyone on TV in the 70s should just save the police the effort and turn themselves in.

!!Artists
Mainly of the screen-painting or sculpting kind, are usually viewed by people as spaced-out loons, obnoxious egomaniacs or lazy people who can't get better jobs for a living, despite most of these (especially sculptors) give months of their hard work into a single picture.
* Modern abstract artists of the Tracey Emin or Damien Hirst type come in for a lot of derision and ridicule. Tracey Emin is best known for entering a representation of her unmade bed and personal living space into an exhibition as a "statement", and her rather abrasive, confrontational personality has attracted parody and sly sniggering. Damien Hirst's best-known work is a laterally dissected dead cow in a tank of formaldehyde. A regular cartoon strip in ''Magazine/PrivateEye'' is called "Young British Artists" and mercilessly pillories the attitudes and output of these Young Turks.
** The art-collectors who esteem this sort of work and pay eye-watering sums for it also come in for flak. Charles Saatchi, a champion of Hirst and Emin, attracted a lot of laughter when he bought Marc Quinn's self-portrait bust, cast in his own blood, only to lose it when a cleaner unplugged the freezer that was keeping the precious work frozen, in order to plug in her hoover. The blood statue defrosted and melted. When the warehouse, in which Saatchi was storing his treasures of Modern British Art, caught fire and burnt down, the general opinion was that the quality of British art had leapt upwards overnight.
** Not that the dead artists don't have any haters. Living musicians also have their share of hatedom, see the Actors & Actresses section below.
* Animators get it pretty bad too thanks to the AnimationAgeGhetto. People tend to view them as [[ManChild Man Children]] because they work on shows and movies for little kids while most normal people would've outgrown liking that stuff by now. Like the artist they can spend countless hours of work for only a couple of minutes of animation yet most of the public at large assumes that "drawing cartoons" is something a kid can do. There's also elements of the BasementDweller since an animator could spend days working at his station without seeing sunlight as well as sharing similar nerdy tendencies.
** If you're an overseas animator, chances are you'll be seen as a technically proficient yet creatively void worker drone who's only purpose is to mimic the style of the show you're commissioned to work on. There's a reason why US animation studios send all their inbetweening work overseas.
** Logo animators avert this, since its in general considered to be important for business to make a logo. Not to mention all the social contacts you have with that business. In general most animators can detract people by mentioning all the company logo's they created.

!!Writers
Writers also get their share of ridicule. Unless you're a million-selling hit, good luck finding respect from the masses. Even worse if you're an aspiring writer, as the fact that you're not even published is taken as a sign, in and of itself, that your work must suck (never mind that even good novels can take YEARS to get published for a variety of reasons having little to nothing to do with the work itself). It's very common for aspiring writers to be told to give up their silly "hobby" and get a "real job."
* Writers have the additional handicap of working in a medium which does not produce fast reactions in the way that music or paintings do. It's more difficult to convince a naysayer to take the time and effort to read your work as opposed to looking at a picture or listening to a few minutes of music.
* It's even worse if you are [[VanityPublishing self-published]] as many people will assume that your work was too poor to get published by a company and you have to sell it on Amazon. Never mind that sending in a manuscript means that you could be waiting months or even a year for a response that may be a rejection and self-publishing guarantees a substantially greater sum of royalties (70% compared to 15%). This stereotype is still persisting despite best-selling authors like John Locke and Hugh Howey (Whose series is being turned into a film by Ridley Scott) and published authors who have made more online than through print.
** "I've got a terrific idea for a book. I'll tell it to you, you write it, and we'll split the money!"
* Pretty much the only safe profession for writers is producing clickbait, which puts them in a Catch-22. If you put out a novel and people recognise your name from a stream of Top 10 listicles, they'll discredit you without reading one sentence. If you try to start with the novel, publishing companies will see you as too high-risk.

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* Diane from ''WesternAnimation/BojackHorseman'' is an aspiring writer whose only gig for the longest time was ghost-writing Bojack's memoirs. Once that's done she tries her hand at writing a political memoir, only to quickly realise she knows next to nothing about anything. She gets over this by writing a young adult series that actually does gain traction and gives her joy.
** Bojack's father Butterscotch was an aspiring novelist, but his inability to take criticism combined with his very vague description of what his novel was supposed to be about shot his dreams dead in the water. Given he once bragged about making one sentence go on for several pages, it's pretty clear his ambitions outstripped his talents.
** The scriptwriter for Bojack's new crime drama is shown to be a reality-deprived basket-case who objectifies women and can't tell a concise story without radically switching genres. His wishy-washy writing style partially contributes to Bojack's SanitySlippage.

!!Ballet dancers
Male ballet dancers are almost always presented as CampGay or CampStraight. Never mind that ballet is one of the most intense physical workouts the human body can experience, these guys are ''wusses''. The trend toward RealMenWearPink portrayals acknowledges that the average male dancer is strong enough to lift adult women (his dance partners) over his head all day long and ''will'' crush your fingers in a firm handshake using his own, moisturized, silky-smooth hands if you decide to mock him or his profession.

Ballerinas don't get off much better. Often the [[GoodSmokingEvilSmoking chain-smoking]] epitome of BeautyIsBad, LeanAndMean, or the FrenchJerk (even though she's frequently Russian). The requisite dainty figure and young retirement age also seems to imply that even the most serious performer is just the plaything of fetishistic men (and only men; female creepy "admirers" get a pass no matter what).

[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* In ''Film/BlackSwan'', Nina, a ballet dancer, is obsessive and repressed and eats very little to keep a slim figure. The only other dancers focused on are Lily, who might be trying to steal Nina's role, Beth, whose early retirement left her bitter, and Veronica, who is only a minor character but is very bitchy. Lily smokes as well.

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** In one episode, Lisa joins a ballet club, and discovers all the dancers smoke to keep slender and de-stress from the intensity of ballet.
** An even earlier episode was about Bart studying ballet because all of the other extracurricular activities were taken, and the bullying and abuse he took for taking such a "sissy" activity.

!![[SmoothTalkingTalentAgent Talent Agents & Managers]]
A writer, artist, musician etc can have all the talent in the world, but they won't find huge success if they cannot show the world that talent- and convince entertainment executives to hire them, put them on stage or screen, and pay them a fat stack of cash for their work. Unfortunately this work requires a very different skillset from that of writing novels, painting on canvas or writing the perfect pop song. Enter the talent agent- the person whose very job it is to be attention-seeking, [[ProfessionalButtKisser ass-kissing]] and money-grubbing, and who does all of this so you don't have to. For [[OnlyInItForTheMoney a hefty fee]], of course. Expect the talent agent in fiction to be brashly confident, ruthless, insincerely polite and friendly towards those they need to impress, and an abrasive jerkass towards absolutely everyone else. They tend to be [[OnlyInItForTheMoney only interested in money]], with no real appreciation for the art produced by their clients. Despite their insincerity, they may be [[BrutalHonesty brutally honest]] to their clients when required, but not to the point that their client might take offence and take their money elsewhere.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* ''Series/{{Extras}}'' has Andy's agent Darren, who is a complete moron in all aspects beyond calculating his cut of Andy's paycheck. When Andy is approached by an agent that's smarter and better connected, he sacks Darren on the spot...then finds out his new agent is a freeloader who would rather capitalise on tabloid fodder than contribute to the arts.
* ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' Crane's agent Bebe Glazer. Cut-throat, rude, tenacious, and utterly morally bankrupt:
-->"Lady Macbeth without the sincerity"- Niles Crane
* ''Series/TheLarrySandersShow'': Larry's longtime agent Leo is kind, genuine, mild-mannered and loyal... and obviously not cut out to be an agent. Enter his replacement Stevie Grant- sleazy, obnoxious, money-grubbing, utterly ruthless- everything an agent should be. He is also dangerously disloyal, but that's just agents for you.
* ''Series/ToastOfLondon'': When Stephen Toast's agent Jane Plough hears of another actor's sudden death, her immediate reaction is to put Toast forward for the role he was playing at the time.

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/BoJackHorseman'': All of the Hollywood agents, with Vanessa Gekko probably being the most ruthless of all. This trope is [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig-Zagged]] with [=BoJack=]'s agent Princess Carolyn, who is shown to aggressively pursue new clients and deals, but is also portrayed as a bit more human than the rest (despite Vanessa Gekko actually being a human, and Princess Carolyn being a cat).

!![[StrawCritic Critics]]

Authors don't particularly like being criticized -- and chances are, if you enjoy the work in which they are portrayed, you'll probably dislike ''its'' critics too.
-->[[http://www.ansible.co.uk/writing/numbeast.html "What is a critic but an articulate reader? What is negative criticism but the plaint of a disappointed reader?"]]
* There's been a rising trend in the number of comedians who refuse to accept any negative criticism, often blaming it on political correctness (if they're male), [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-things-that-make-doing-comedy-nightmare-women/ sexism]] (if they're female) or [[http://thenewdaily.com.au/entertainment/2016/02/15/lawrence-mooneys-viral-twitter-attack/ shoddy journalism]] (either gender).

[[AC:Film]]
* ''Birdman'' shows washed-up actor and aspiring playwright Riggan Thompson dealing with a CausticCritic who tells him pont-blank that she's going to disparage whatever content he puts out. In retaliation, Riggan reads aloud on of her reviews and points out that all she does is throw around negative-sounding words without pointing out any actual flaws in a work.
-->"There's nothing here about technique! There's nothing in here about structure! There's nothing in here about intentions! It's just a bunch of crappy opinions, backed up by even crappier comparisons. You write a couple of paragraphs and you know what? None of this cost you fuckin' anything! The Fuck! You risk nothing! Nothing! Nothing! Nothing! I'm a fucking actor! This play cost me everything... So I tell you what, you take this fucking malicious, cowardly, shittily-written review and you shove that right the fuck up your wrinkly tight ass."
* The 2007 documentary ''Heckler'' was produced by comedian Jamie Kennedy as retaliation for all the negative reviews and heckles he kept recieving. It gained notoriety for showing that maybe StrawmanHadAPoint due to Jamie's petulance. In the doco's defense, there were several interviews with entertainers who were much more professional in their response to negative feedback.

[[AC:Music]]
* (Semi) Parodied by Tim Minchin with his [[https://youtu.be/3Onjdw_FXyw "Song for Phil Daoust"]].
* {{Music/Chicago|Band}}'s [[https://youtu.be/zZ7Ef12EyUI Critics Choice]].

!![[ExecutiveMeddling Network executives]]
Whenever something is {{pothole}}d on ExecutiveMeddling, there is a high chance that it's said in a bad way: people obsessed with UsefulNotes/{{Ratings}} and cost over the real quality of a show, who think ViewersAreMorons, {{Macekre}} and {{Bowdlerise}} imported {{anime}}, etc. The ProtectionFromEditors page gives them some vindication.

Sometimes they also tend to be portrayed as corrupt businessmen that are paid to brainwash the masses with all kinds of pro-governmental propaganda. This portrayal is often seen in... [[{{Irony}} political propaganda works]].

!![[ImmoralRealityShow Reality TV showrunners]]
Creators of Reality TV (or human interest shows) are rarely ever portrayed positively in fiction, even at the height of their popularity. Often they are considered to be sociopaths that love exploiting the pain and suffering of others to attract sensation, extremely abusive with no respect whatsoever for the man that becomes the subject of their show, narcissistic and very condemning towards anyone that is not "normal" enough (whatever the last term means). It is telling that the most critically acclaimed Flemish program ever (''In de gloria'') is all about laughing with those people.

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' regularly mocks reality television, which should come as no surprise considering its creators have worked on critically-acclaimed films and even wrote a broadway musical. Anyone who participates in reality tv is either obese, a redneck, a drug addict, a domestic abuser or a combination of the above. Jesus is the only tv personality that's shown to have any dignity, which puts him at odds with his ratings-obsessed producer.

!!Clowns
As discussed at the trope entry, MonsterClown is about the ''only'' clown portrayal that exists in fiction these days, aside from the occasional case of the clown who HatesTheJobLovesTheLimelight or the clown as the CorruptCorporateExecutive responsible for corrupting the circus they are working on and turning it into something morally reprehensible (animal abuse and drug stories abound), which isn't much better. While the basis for RealLife mime dislike is their being annoying, clowns have the baggage of more ostentatious appearances and criminals (i.e., murderers, pedophiles) like John Wayne Gacy. On top of this, they're not seen as particularly talented performers even in non-evil portrayals (i.e., the obnoxious birthday party clown). The fact that circus, the medium in which most of the best and often non-stereotypical RealLife clowns work, is not as popular as it once was doesn't help.

[[AC:Film]]
* ''Film/{{Joker|2019}}'' is all about a down-on-his luck clown who is forced to kill a group of yuppies that attempted to lynch him. When word gets out, the media portrays the yuppies as innocent while the killer clown is demonized. This turns into an in-universe case of DoNotDoThisCoolThing, as the downtrodden proudly adopt the clown imagery and the titular Joker takes BlackComedy to a whole new level.

!!Stage Magicians

Untalented and amateur magicians are subjected to the same mockery as clows - forever fated to fumble simple sleight-of-hand tricks in kids' birthday parties, desperately trying to look cool while performing obvious tricks on stage, their presentations ruined by a JerkAss loudly exclaiming he sees a wire. Competent ones, on the other hand, are common fodder for [[PoliceProcedural PoliceProcedurals]], since their skill at trickery and refusal to reveal their secrets makes them look untrustworthy. Magicians are often portrayed as stealing one another's tricks, harassing and manipulating their lovely assistants and abusing animals used on tricks. Even if they're on the level, they're portrayed as arrogant, effeminate and pretentious (add a DarknessVonGothickName and you have an edgy street magician). Critics will often dismiss performances as outdated and boring compared to CGI special effects, ignoring the skill, creativity and often physical strength required to perform some tricks.

!![[ImmoralJournalist Journalists]] (aka, Newshounds)

Shown as always getting in the way of things. Also shown as being bought easily to slant the news, and writing biased news that covers up the truth. Any gossip journalism gets this double, and quintuple for ''any'' tabloid or magazine journalist. Add in some [[CowboyBebopAtHisComputer inaccuracies]] and you'll get loads of {{Face Palm}}ing.
* e-Journalists (ie, bloggers and people who post stories on the internet) are often called "slackers". Yeah, anyone can ''have'' a blog, except not everyone's as willing to devote as much time to their blog as professionals do. (ie, most bloggers won't interview people, they won't go out of their way to do the research whereas most blogs about other gossip is a mere response or chain-linking)
* Since the 2011 News International "phone hacking" scandal broke, revealing evidence of widespread unethical activity on the part of certain areas of the tabloid press -- including hacking people's phone messages, in too many cases for no other reason than to find tawdry gossip (although one example involved the case of a missing teenager whose phone was hacked and messages deleted to try and prompt more information, giving her family reason to hope that she was still alive which turned out to be cruelly unfounded) and bribing members of the police to look the other way -- the general reputation of journalists and tabloid journalists especially has sunk to new lows.
* Let's not forget that in the US, most established journalists are viewed as little more than glorified stenographers
** For bonus verification points, "[[http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/should-the-times-be-a-truth-vigilante/ Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?]]"
* A 2017 poll found that Donald Trump had a 42% approval rating (an all time low for a U.S. President in his first 100 days) and Congress had a 14% approval rating (Nothing new. Americans tend to hate everyone in Congress that their state didn't send). Journalists as a whole, have a 9% approval rating.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* In ''Series/{{Community}}'', Annie has stated her reason for being on the school newspaper is to mitigate the fallout to a previous drug addiction.
-->'''Annie:''' No one will think about my time in rehab if they think I'm a writer!

[[AC: Literature]]
* In ''Literature/HarryPotter,'' the Daily Prophet shows its politics leanings more and more as the books go on. Rita Skeeter, of ''Witch Weekly,'' in particular is painted as an opportunistic, lie-mongering, petty-minded, foul little woman who'll publish anything to make it sell, and who illegally mastered an insanely dangerous and powerful technique, just to spy and get the best "scoop."

!![[EveryoneHatesMimes 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 EveryOneHatesMimes.

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' Lord Vetinari, {{Chessmaster}} ''par excellence'', the completely ruthless ruler of Ankh-Morpork, only has two emotional anchors to the world: Love for a small terrier named Wuffles, and a deep hatred of mimes. [[note]] In later books he also demonstrates a strong and possibly understandable distaste for modern artists of the Creator/TraceyEmin variety, having one opiniated young artist repeatedly nailed to things by her ears.[[/note]] Vetinari lets anyone who doesn't interfere with the smooth operation of the city go about his/her business in peace, and has offered both the Thieves and Assassins to go legit, but push your hands against an invisible box and you will spend the rest of your life chained upside-down to a dungeon wall.
** With the phrase "learn the words" on the wall in front of them.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* Averted by ''Series/PushingDaisies'' when the team run into a mime. He initially attempts to describe his own murder through pure mime, but is told not to, quickly complies, and isn't portrayed as very annoying at all. In fact, Chuck asks "can you do trapped in a glass box, because I love that."

[[AC:NewspaperComics]]
* ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'': "If a tree falls in the forest and no one's around, and it hits a mime, does anybody care?"

[[AC:VideoGames]]
* In ''VideoGame/GabrielKnight'', there's a mime harassing people in a park. Gabriel can punch in the face and have a police officer chase after him.

[[AC:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls1998'' had one episode in which a clown doused in bleach became a mime and turned the entire world monochrome. When the world and the clown were both re-colored, the girls pummeled him anyway and sent him to prison.

!!Musicians
Professional musicians are another category of artist that get this treatment. Unless you're a rock/pop/hip-hop/country star or a [[PosthumousPopularityPotential centuries-dead composer]], the stereotype is that you're living in a box or your mom's house. [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs Or a box in your mom's house]].

!!!Touring Musicians
* Can go either way, but are often portrayed as drunken, obnoxious idiots who complain about anything and everything, treat fans like garbage, act like divas and storm offstage over completely trivial matters, and inevitably vandalize hotel rooms and/or venue backstage areas. Expect serious delusions of grandeur and a pervasive rockstar mentality regardless of how big the band is, ESPECIALLY if they're slumming it in a run-down van that breaks down constantly.
** Opera artists are a weird subset of this. It's not just the assumption of diva-dom, but the BrawnHilda trope is so ubiquitous that the uninitiated often have the idea that a high BMI is somehow necessary for the voice. Not only this, but the fact that opera is expensive to create tends to erroneously lead people to bracket them under RichBitch tropes too (it's clear from the names of the tropes that most of these are targeted particularly at females.) And the fact that they're supposed to have excruciating, [[GlassShatteringSound glass-shattering]] voices that they unleash at any opportunity.
** Promoters get an even worse rap. Most cultural portrayals of them paint them as dishonest, exploitative sleazeballs who lie to agents and bands and promise impossible things, gather a ludicrous amount of high school bands full of kids who don't know any better to buy tickets at a huge cost and sell them just so they can do the promoting for them and help them make guarantees that they would have no hope of clearing otherwise, and once the night of the show comes, the promoter will invariably fail to do most of the things they said they would and will look at bands like they're out of their minds if questioned about those things. Also, if the show doesn't go as planned, you can expect the promoter and their associates to vanish with the money and suddenly be impossible to reach. Finally, if a promoter somehow is portrayed well, they will ''always'' be struggling to survive amidst all the sleazy, unfair tactic-using competition who stay in business just by screwing people over and always being able to avoid trouble.
* Among actual touring musicians, you have tagalong merch attendants. No, not professionals who do it for a living - we're talking random friends or significant others of band members. Did someone leave the van unlocked in a bad area, wander off to go drinking with a dead phone, wind up stranded an hour away in the wrong direction after venturing off to get laid, drunkenly vomit all over the inside of the van, have drugs on them at the border, or give discounts or free stuff to their buddies, someone willing to hand them weed, or someone they wanted to sleep with? If so, it's generally a safe bet that it was probably a temporary merch guy, and even if they don't do anything inordinately stupid, they probably still managed to piss the band off somehow and probably also helped sour relations with the member who suggested them or insisted that they were cool.
* Also known to touring musicians are the dregs of the local openers. Virtually every act started out as a local and the vast majority of touring acts can name plenty of great locals that they love to share the stage with. We're not talking about those guys. We're talking about the stereotypical scumbag local: the one who takes too long to set up and soundcheck, complains loudly and obnoxiously about their timeslot and/or goes over and puts the entire show behind, leaves their stuff all over the place when they break down after their set so that they can take off to the bar and get trashed, trashes other locals and has nothing to do with the local scene beyond what is necessary for personal gain, and generally acts like a hotshot jerk with a temporarily embarrassed millionaire mindset.
* In bands there are two members who are joke magnets: the [[NobodyLovesTheBassist ever-neglected bassist]], and the drummer, who is either [[AllDrummersAreAnimals a wild thing]] or [[DumbAndDrummer a moron]].

!!!Violists
* [[http://www.mit.edu/~jcb/viola-jokes.html Viola Jokes]] practically consistute a genre in themselves.

!!!Banjo Players
* Usually shown as at worst [[Film/{{Deliverance}} creepy hillbillies]], and at best semiliterate, dentally disadvantaged (Q: What has eighteen legs and three teeth? A: Nine banjo players), musically incompetent (Q: How can you tell when a banjo player is at the door? A: The knocking gets faster and fasterandfaster, they don't know when to come in, and they can't find the key), and possessing a repertoire of two songs, of which one is "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" and the other is not.
* While the PolkaDork is usually associated with the accordion, the banjo also counts, as shown by Comicstrip/{{Garfield}}'s [[https://www.gocomics.com/search/full_results?category=comic&short_name=garfield&terms=banjo owner Jon]].

!!!Historical
* In many historical cultures, including the Medieval and Renaissance West, musicians were essentially viewed as a type of prostitute, similarly to actors. The major exception was for religious and ceremonial music, which were considered a totally separate medium from secular music. This attitude still exists in many highly conservative varieties of Islam.

!!{{Paparazzi}}
See the article for more information.

!!Pro Bodybuilders
Often portrayed as grotesque freaks or meatheaded gymrats, often stereotyped as taking every drug under the sun and not actually being very fit (in reality top-tier bodybuilders often have a training schedule reaching up to 12 hours a day; (although not all of it is spent in the gym) sometimes on top of a regular job, not to mention they afford themselves very little luxuries in terms of food), at least not compared to 'real' athletes. Particularly unsympathetic examples will usually add in open homophobia and [[AxCrazy frighteningly violent mood swings]] due to heavy steroid usage.

[[AC:Advertisement]]
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhDcjlYrwmQ The Planet Fitness commercials]] are ruthless in their portrayal of "lunks", or people that exhibit the stereotypical behaviors of gymrats. The commercials are meant to appeal to casual gym goers that are too "gymtimidated" by the environment of other gyms, while discouraging the "lunks" that make up said environments from visiting Planet Fitness. This is even carried over to the actual facilities, which have a "Lunk Alarm" installed to signal unwanted gym behavior, along with a general disdain for "lunks". This, among many other issues, has made Planet Fitness itself an acceptable target amongst gymrats.

!![[ProfessionalWrestling Professional wrestlers]]
Granted, it's not often to their face (''you'' try [[BullyingADragon telling the 7'1", 300-lb guy who makes a living throwing people around an arena what you think of him]]), but it tends to often invoke DumbMuscle tropes quite a bit. Especially from fans.
** Detractors of wrestling love to claim that they're all roided-up homosexuals looking for an excuse to [[UnderwearOfPower wear spandex panties]] and [[HoYay touch other men]], [[UnfortunateImplications which also implies that female wrestlers do not exist or, if they are acknowledged at all, they're just eye candy, rather than serious professionals who do the sport for a living.]]

!!Referees\umpires
The bane of many a sports fan. When they just do their job of [[LawfulNeutral enforcing the rules]], no problem, specially [[CombatReferee when the contestants are making things difficult]]. But if they influence the game result by doing the job wrong - [[EasilyDistractedReferee missing illegal moves]], wrongfully fouling legal moves, failing to punish UnnecessaryRoughness while [[DisproportionateRetribution heavily punishing minor felonies]] - soon the ref (and his mother) will be the target of chants across the stadium. If it's a decisive game, fans will remember the blunder even more.

[[AC: Film]]
* ''Kill the Umpire'', a 1950 comedy about a former baseball player turned umpire.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* HBO did in Brazil a show starring [[UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball soccer]] referees. Its name? ''FDP'', Portuguese for [[PhraseCatcher SOB]].
* Series/{{Chespirito}} often made fun of football (soccer) referees in his many series. One notable instance in ''Series/ElChapulinColorado'' has the title character in a vostume party, grabbing the sign from a guy dressed as a blind beggar and putting it on a guy dressed as a football referee.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Military]]
!!Soldiers
In general: drinking, womanizing troublemakers at best, [[SociopathicSoldier rapists, pillagers and casual murderers at worst]]. Both can show up even in ostensibly sympathetic works.
* '''Shellshocked Veterans''': The [[ShellShockedVeteran traumatic flashbacks]] of said group are quite often played for laughs, at least if the conflict in question is sufficiently removed from living memory (a classical example being the Vietnam War). Try depicting the same thing occurring to soldiers returning from more recent wars under the context of comedy (think the 2003 Iraq War) and see what kind of response you'll get.
* Even among the [[MediaWatchdog "how dare you criticize our troops" crowd]], [[RecruitersAlwaysLie recruiters are, sometimes, free game.]]
** Considering that recruiters [[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1889152,00.html kill themselves with some frequency]], one has to wonder about where [[MediaWatchdog their]] sympathies lie.
* Generally, the officers rather than the enlisted men or draftees are the true demons here. Draftees get the most sympathetic portrayals: PunchClockVillain at worst, but more often than not simply hapless dupes.
* '''{{Drill Sergeant|Nasty}}s''' are usually treated as less than human machines made simply for demeaning and putting the trainees through [[TrainingFromHell hell]].

!![[EnsignNewbie Lieutenants and Ensigns]]
In military-themed works, as the most junior and inexperienced commissioned officers, [[UsefulNotes/CommonMilitaryRanks lieutenants and ensigns]] tend to be a punchline. As they combine a level of command responsibility with [[NewMeat a complete lack of experience]], the ''best'' they can hope for is to be treated as puppies who might someday grow up to be someone useful if they listen to SergeantRock. At worst, "the most dangerous thing in the world is a lieutenant with a map and a compass" and shrugging your shoulders in confusion is referred to as "the ensign salute". This is normally PlayedForLaughs, though. Lieutenants' screwups actually getting people killed is rarer in fiction (though it happens), because that's more depressing than entertaining. Interestingly, being even younger than the average O-1 (who, being usually [[MilitaryAcademy straight out of school]], is about 21-22 years old) can take you out of the acceptable targets crosshair, likely due to your youth: [[PluckyMiddie Midshipmen and Cadets]], particularly in the [[WoodenShipsAndIronMen age of sail]], are often young enough that they're basically ChildSoldiers and so when something bad happens to them it's not funny, it's tragic.

[[AC:Literature]]
* In ''Literature/StarshipTroopers'', Rico is made a ''Third'' Lieutenant (a special rank only used during training) while he's going to officer candidate school; it's because he's not qualified as an actual officer yet but he isn't really an enlisted man either, and he has to fit into the rank structure ''somewhere''. Rico himself says about the rank "If anybody ever saluted a Third Lieutenant, the light was bad."
* In ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' Scotty Tremaine is introduced in the first book as well-meaning but generally clueless, and Petty Officer Horace Harkness is assigned to try to turn him into a respectable officer. The trope is then invoked and subverted by the pair once Scotty learns a few things; when searching merchant ships, they use Tremaine's apparent naiveté to lull dishonest spacers into a false sense of security and get Harkness, [[ReformedCriminal himself a former experienced smuggler]], into position to detect and confiscate all sorts of contraband. Both eventually grow beyond these roles as the series wears on.

!!Intelligence Officers (better known as "spies")
If a character is employed by a three-letter agency like the CIA, NSA, DEA and FBI or a non-American equivalent (or a GovernmentAgencyOfFiction loosely inspired by portrayals of these agencies), you can bet that they will be spooky, powerful [[TheMenInBlack Men in Black]] who carry the characters' lives in their hands, [[SpiesAreDespicable usually not often for the best]], with only the most benign examples being portrayed as {{Punch Clock Villain}}s. In a serious historical or political drama, if not part of a GovernmentConspiracy, they may often simply be portrayed as overly gung ho or incompetent.

!![[PunchClockVillain The staff]] of facilities for the commission of atrocity
No one is going to care if a camp guard in a Holocaust film dies, or a Gulag guard, or a minion in a Khmer Rouge-occupied police station. Doctors in said facilities are portrayed largely as {{Evilutionary Biologist}}s.

!!PrivateMilitaryContractors
Portrayed as corrupt {{Sociopathic Soldier}}s in contrast to the traditions of standard armies, even TheEvilArmy. They also make perfect post-communism villains for avoiding the need to demonise a foreign country. Nice portrayals show violent, opportunistic drunkards with power fantasies, disregard for laws and ethics, and loose trigger fingers. They like to hang around at checkpoints and harass everyone for money, booze, or both. They're either people who can't function in regular society or are psychopathic manchildren from rich countries whose idea of a party is getting paid big bucks to terrorize poor people in wartorn lands just because they can and they're getting paid. Mean protrayals depict war criminals who actively seek out chances to kill and torture and get paid for it. They don't care who the employer is or who they're being set loose on, so long as the money keeps coming and they get to RapePillageAndBurn.

[[AC:Fan Works]]
* In ''Fanfic/TheNightUnfurls'', the Black Dogs are a [[{{PMC}} mercenary group]] who [[EtTuBrute turns against]] the country that hired them in order to take over and build a SexSlave [[TheEmpire Empire]]. Every [[SociopathicSoldier member]] is [[RapePillageAndBurn a rapist and a pillager]] in cahoots with [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil slavers]] and TheHorde.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Public officials]]
!!Government Employees in general
See "People With Mundane Desk Jobs" above, and add elements of "Politicians" and "Fast Food Workers", with both the [[ObstructiveBureaucrat obstructive]] variety and the dim witted variety unable to hold work in self sufficient enterprise (not to mention the ones that are obstructive by nature of their stupidity). Often seen as enforcing Political Correctness.

!!Animal Control
Nearly every family movie that stars any sort of runaway or street-dwelling critter will have these guys show up, as spoil-sport "stick-em in a net and haul them [[PoundsArePetPrisons into a cage for detainment]]" obstacles-to-adventure at best (the animal version of hall monitors), and as psychopathic bastards that enjoy nothing more than torturing and cruelly killing cute, furry animals (animal version of StateSec) at worst. Typically, our plucky-pawed heroes make fools of the bumbling goons and escape. People who work at animal shelters in real-life are not amused (since most of them work there because they genuinely care for animals and try to get them off the street and into a good home), and even have to explain to people looking to adopt pets that they are not the villains the movies portray them to be.

!![[ObstructiveBureaucrat Bureaucrats]]
Usually depicted as dull and unhelpful, demanding excessive amounts of paperwork to process even the simplest action.

!!Politicians
We have [[AcceptablePoliticalTargets a whole page for this]], but to summarize: the stereotypical politician is inevitably [[CorruptPolitician corrupt]], often an ObstructiveBureaucrat, and puts their re-election ahead of everything else. The stereotypical politician is willing to promise voters the moon, and then [[DidYouActuallyBelieve give them the shaft]] as soon as the election is over. The word "politician" even used to be an epithet!

!!Social Workers
Usually portrayed as lazy, heartless, stupid, and/or tied up by [[ObstructiveBureaucrat bureaucratic red tape]] (causing them to either ignore obvious problems or to insist on enforcing rules in petty and counterproductive ways). On many TV shows and movies, they are usually played by emotionally cold Black women who are plagued by a crappy childhood or a failed relationship. If a black woman is not available, the social worker from the DepartmentOfChildDisservices is played by well-meaning but overworked and overwhelmed, frumpy looking white guys.
* The hospital social worker on ''Series/{{Hawthorne}}''. She's an overweight, frumpily dressed White woman (as compared to the hot looking nurses) who can't seem to do anything right or doesn't care enough about people to help. Then of course the title character (played by Jada Pinkett Smith) comes in and makes everything better.
* ''Series/{{Reba}}'' featured an especially loud, overweight black woman who publicly embarrassed her when she [[DontYouDarePityMe tried to stop them from giving her family food stamps]].
* The ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E11PastTensePartI Past Tense]]", a two-part screed against the treatment of the unemployed and homeless. The Sanctuary District office workers trying to provide services to the residents have morale almost as low as the residents themselves. They're underpaid and underfunded, but even then they openly use FantasticSlurs to describe the residents ("dims" for general population, "gimmies" for people who are looking for help and have actual marketable skills, "ghosts" for people who turned GangBanger inside the District).

!!Health and Safety officers
Generally not shown that much in fiction (after all, NoOSHACompliance is the law of the land in fiction-land), but the prevailing stereotype of the EHS officer in construction and manufacturing is as follows: an ObstructiveBureaucrat who likes to play "safety cop" and ride people's asses about trivial matters or, worse, about things that are genuine safety issues that are unavoidable either due to the employer's continual failure to adequately address them, or because not ignoring them would lead to things being way behind schedule or production falling below goals, and generally does nothing other than get in the way and unduly interrupt workflow. Furthermore, they are generally viewed as management's [[YesMan compliance dogs]], rather than actually making hard decisions when the interests of the workers and of management don't align - when their jobs are on the line, they will usually kowtow to management, then bark a big game about how the workers are their real boss, when they really don't care about anything other than their own self-interest. If anything serious ''does'' happen on their watch, they will usually do their best to dodge responsibility, usually by throwing the workers under the bus via a sham "investigation" that concludes that they were solely at fault for the incident that is then used to justify a for-cause termination.

!!Postal workers
In fiction these folks are quiet, unassuming types who live peaceful and boring lives without bothering anyone, [[PizzaBoySpecialDelivery quiet, unassuming types who never forget to give a "special delivery" to your wife when you're not home]], or [[GoingPostal quiet, unassuming types who are just about to explode into extreme violence with no prior warning]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Law enforcement and emergency services]]

!!Police Officers
In most people's eyes, cops only exist to give you traffic tickets, [[PoliceBrutality beat you to a bloody pulp]], and/or take you to jail. However, when there are actual criminals to catch, [[PoliceAreUseless they are suddenly nowhere to be seen]]. If you haven't actually done anything wrong, they'll find a reason to do one of those things, and due to several infamous incidents they're seen as having {{Hair Trigger Temper}}s, especially when it comes to dealing with members of minority groups. When they aren't, they're busy [[DonutMessWithACop scarfing down donuts]]. That or they represent the threat of [[Literature/NineteenEightyFour a potential future that few would like]] and are the clenched right fist of The Man.

[[AC:Music]]
* Despite preferring to stick to the UnacceptableTargets most of the time, Music/AnalCunt once did a song called "You're a Cop". Lyrics include "Powdered sugar on your fingers, coffee on your shirt, [[CorruptCop bribes in your pocket]], you never do any work".

!!TrafficWardens
Read the article for info.

!!Traffic Cops
Smirking tools employed to boost the public coffers by handing out citations, who'll happily [[PoliceAreUseless spend 45 minutes ticketing a sweet little old lady]] [[FelonyMisdemeanor for her expired inspection tag]] before doing anything to stop the madman [[DrivesLikeCrazy weaving through traffic at 90 miles an hour]].

!!Airport Security
The Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, is ''profoundly'' unpopular in the United States. Stereotypes run from mere annoyances (who can, at worst, slow you down and cause you to miss your plane) to sadistic fascists who enjoy stripping passengers of their shoes, possessions, and basic dignity. The security screeners who work out of sight may also be in the game, rifling through the passengers' luggage and taking items of value.

!!Firefighters and rescue services
Yes, even the occupations that include risking one's life on a daily basis to save other peoples' lives and, if possible, property -- firemen, rescue service officers and the like -- are not always immune. There is the trope of a firefighter (or somebody who aspires to be one) who himself starts fires in hopes that this will allow him to prove himself in action or out of [[HeroismAddiction a desire to feel needed]]. (Yes, these characters are usually male.) And specifically in the US, there's the whole FEMA conspiracy theory... In the US Fire Service in particular, Volunteer Firefighters (Volleys) have a reputation of being "fire-hobbyists" compared to members of career departments, this can be ascribed to generally more lax physical fitness standards and more informal command structures. In media depictions the characters in these departments often tend to be ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything or woefully unprepared for a real emergency.

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* The Bedrock Volunteer Fire Department in WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones is essentially a bunch of guys who need an excuse to get away from their wives for one reason or another, and have in fact never encountered a fire due to the city being made entirely of stone. When summoned to what they believe is an actual house fire, the members respond with some combination of confusion and terror.
* In WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill, the boys join the Arlen Fire Department and while Hank takes the undertaking quite seriously, the other three spend most of the episode fooling around in the station and casually violating even the most basic fire prevention principles. [[spoiler: They end up burning down the station.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Healthcare]]

!!Physicians
Most portrayals of physicians are fairly positive; it's hard to get down on an occupation whose sole raison d'etre is healing the sick and alleviating suffering. However, when physicians go wrong, they go terribly wrong. Given the gravitas of the Hippocratic Oath, there's intense drama to be played out when a physician chooses to go against his code. It's still acceptable to portray a doctor as a complete quack, especially in a comedy. In dramatic works, expect a cold sociopath who sees patients as dollars or a collection of symptoms whose suffering is irrelevant.
* A growing stereotype is that of the doctor who only cares about getting positive feedback from patients, even at the expense of the patients' actual health. Such doctors will casually prescribe unnecessary, addictive, or otherwise dangerous drugs at the patients' request, let impending health problems go untreated, and make sure only to tell the patients what they want to hear rather than give them advice on healthy living that might be seen as insulting. (Note that this may not be ''entirely'' the doctor's fault: many doctors these days have to answer to insurers, hospital administrators, the Joint Commission, and others in the {{Adminisphere}}, who hold them to strict metrics like Press-Ganey, HCAHPS, and patient satisfaction surveys. If they do not meet these metrics, or if they get a bad review on a site like Yelp from a patient who's irate because the doctor told them something they didn't want to hear, they can be penalized, up to and including being fired from the hospital or clinic where they work.)
* On a related note, practitioners of alternative health care will often be portrayed as GranolaGirl ditzes or knowingly malign peddlers of AllNaturalSnakeOil in works which embrace Enlightenment on the RomanticismVersusEnlightenment conflict.
* Another topic is the illegal organ trade.
* Physicians who treat life-or-death cases are likely to be sued for malpractice when they fail to help a patient, even if there's nothing that could have been done. This means that they need extensive malpractice insurance, which invites accusations that they are incompetent or casual murderers. After all, why would a doctor insure himself against malpractice if he didn't plan on committing some?
* What's the difference between a doctor and a lawyer? A lawyer will rob you; a doctor will rob you ''and'' kill you.
* Among doctors and medical students, primary care doctors tend to be acceptable career targets, because [[JackOfAllTrades they don't specialize]], and they don't make as much money as specialists. (Which is one reason why there's a shortage of [=PCPs=]; so many medical students are choosing specialties instead.)
* Subject to changes depending on geography. Countries with universal healthcare systems (i.e. where patients don't get billed for medical care) tend to have a more positive portrayal of doctors, due to the lack of any financial motive.
** In those jurisdictions (particularly the UK and it's love/hate relationship with the NHS), they tend to get more rap over trying to be politicians (in trying to get more funding to the point of being completely obnoxious and with seemingly no regard for the millions of other things that the country-in-question's Treasury needs to find the funds for outside of Healthcare) or a bunch of StopHavingFunGuy style killjoys who try to stop people doing anything remotely hazardous to your health.

!![[PsychoPsychologist Psychologists/Psychiatrists]]
Depending on the genre, any mental health professional in media will either be a sex-obsessed CloudCuckooLander with an OedipusComplex, or the nay-sayer who gets TheCassandra committed to BedlamHouse. Not to mention that all the times they would be truly needed, [[ThereAreNoTherapists they don't exist at all.]] And of course, there's no difference at all between psychology and psychiatry. Often, the only psychiatry depicted will be [[ElectricTorture electroshock therapy]].
* Oh, psychotherapy is a lot more sinister than that. After all, they're [[MindRape messing]] with your ''mind'', maaan! The fact that a visit to BedlamHouse invariably [[GoAmongMadPeople reduces the perfectly sane to gibbering catatonia]] goes to show how [[BreakThemByTalking terrifyingly evil]] shrinks are.
* And of course, you'll rarely see any that subscribe to the [[AllPsychologyIsFreudian biological, cognitive or behavioral models]] of psychopathology.
* Or prescribe any medication (since psychologists and psychiatrists are the same thing, and also because all of them are Freudians who want to [[FreudianCouch talk about your neuroses for an hour while you lie on a couch]]). If they do, [[NoMedicationForMe their patients will refuse to take it]], which is depicted as being liberating instead of risky or dangerous.
* Even sympathetic psychiatric workers will usually have the conflict of being the voice of wisdom and experience in the office while being [[TheCobblersChildrenHaveNoShoes plagued by personal issues they can't solve]] at home. Irony!
* Another somewhat sympathetic portrayal will show them as futilely attempting to treat the AxCrazy villain of the work. Invariably, the villain will prove to be [[TheFarmerAndTheViper too evil to help]], with the poor doctor unaware of this until he becomes the next victim. Expect at least one scene with the psychiatrist ineffectually begging his patient to step off the path of destruction he's following.
* Not to mention the cliche where people with mental illness are portrayed as mildly eccentric goofballs who just need a person to listen to them and offer a kind word and helping hand rather than professional care or medication. This subtly implies that psychiatrists and psychologists do not listen and never, ever offer a kind word or helping hand. It also implies mental illness is not really a disease but a personality trait, which is a rather dangerous implication.

[[AC:Comic Books]]
* Raoul Cauvin's work ''Psy'' is a gag-a-day strip mocking with the profession of psychologists. While his other gag-a-day strips have also laughed with professions (such as is the case with gravediggers (''Pierre Tombal'') and cops (''Agent 212'')) they portray the characters that do that profession in a positive and sympathetic light. This is pretty much lacking in this work, since the main character is a workaholic freudworshipping asshole that even gets the most basic aspects of psychiatry wrong.

[[AC:Literature]]
* The protagonist of Crichton's ''{{Literature/Sphere}}'' is a psychologist, included in the underwater research team to keep an eye on the others. Even though he's the sanest of the crew and most aware of the situation, the other characters are not above jokes at his expense, such as accusing him of playing mental tricks on them.

!!Proctologists
Despite them being fairly important in preventing and treating certain types of cancer, few people will see past "a guy who sticks his fingers up people's asses for a living."
* In some ways, proctologists are the new dentists.
* Bowser & Blue have a comedy song that pokes gentle fun at the field. "''We praise the colorectal surgeon, misunderstood and much-maligned, slaving away in the heart of darkness, working where the Sun don't shine.''"

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'':
-->'''Stan:''' You mean, at some point in this doctor's life he decided he wanted to work on people's buttholes?

!!Gynaecologists
Gynaecologists, like proctologists, professionally stick their fingers where other people don't, but with additional sex undertones. Male gynaecologists are often presented as {{Covert Pervert}}s who secretly enjoy getting their figurative noses into the lady parts of many a young woman, or awkwardly but otherwise harmlessly enthusiastic. By contrast, female gynaecologists are rarely presented as any different to any other kind of doctor, apparently because it seems more "natural" for a woman to take an interest in women's problems.

[[AC:Film]]
* In ''Film/KindergartenCop'', there's a child whose gimmick is to candidly recite a routine about basic sex education, who later turns out to be a gynaecologist's son. The implied joke is that the father is pretty open about the topic.
* In one of ''Film/RevengeOfTheNerds'' sequels, one of the nerds of the first film is revealed to have become a gynaecologist. He declares it in a wink-wink-nod-nod way that makes it pretty obvious as to what motivates him.

[[AC:Literature]]
* One of {{Creator/Dean Koontz}}'s novels has a secondary gynaecologist character. While he's lacking any major character flaws, he's not above cracking jokes about the patient's nethers to his anaesthesiologist partner.

!!Abortion Doctors
Portrayed very unsympathetically in most [[GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion pro-life]] works, where they are [[MedicalHorror cold-hearted amoral scientists]], or worse.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* In the ''Series/MastersOfHorror'' series, generally not written to evangelize, there are at least two episodes involving these. One depicts the crew of a women's health clinic as dedicated and professional. In the other, [[RashomonStyle the reveal]] that a character's mother was an abortionist is played off as a part of her tale getting consecutively stripped of pleasant lies.

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* Averted in a ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode where Mr(s.) Garrison goes to an abortion clinic and describes getting an abortion in the crudest way possible (i.e. scrambling its brains and vaccuuming it out). A nurse overhears her and is visibly disturbed at Mr(s.) Garrison's callousness.

!!Nurses
* Portrayed as [[HospitalHottie oversexed]] bimboes who spend more time flirting with doctors (or occasionally patients) than treating patients, and who weren't smart enough to make it through medical school and got HiredForTheirLooks. (Which is, of course, not true at all; nurses work just as hard as doctors, arguably moreso, and nursing school is ''most assuredly'' not something that just anyone can do or is cut out for.) Because nursing is a primarily female-dominated profession, its portrayal ''frequently'' comes with a heaping helping of misogyny. Male nurses (if they're shown at all) are almost always portrayed as either gay, or using their profession to get with female nurses or patients. Female nurses still wear short white dresses and caps, occasionally with [[ZettaiRyouiki thigh-high stockings underneath]], even though nurses haven't worn outfits like that for decades; in RealLife, both male and female nurses wear scrubs. (And actually, the "[[SexyWhateverOutfit sexy nurse outfit]]" is something of a DeadUnicornTrope; even when female nurses ''did'' wear dresses or skirts (up until about TheSeventies or so), the hems were never more than an inch or two above the knee, at the most.)
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Science and Education]]

!!Scientists
They are often [[MadScientist evil]], [[BunglingInventor quixotic]] or [[AbsentMindedProfessor clueless]]. They will more often than not lack [[NotGoodWithPeople basic social skills]] and common sense; the latter usually so the [[GoodIsDumb book-dumb hero]] can show them how intelligence isn't all about "book learnin'".
* There's a joke that goes like this: A biologist is a chemist who can't do math, and a chemist is a 3rd-rate physicist. This is thanks to much bickering about the considered "purity" of each branch of the sciences, as summed up succinctly [[https://xkcd.com/435/ here]].
* Although geologists and certain physicists are no less involved, biologists tend to get the short end of the stick in Creationist fiction. This is probably because "evolution" is a handy catch-all term for the intended audience.
* Marine biologists often find themselves the butt of jokes involving [[BestialityIsDepraved bestiality]] with [[{{Squick}} fish, dolphins, seals, squid]], or really AnythingThatMoves in the ocean.
* All physicists ever do is nukes. Some of them may also develop God complexes or build other types of superweapons, but in the end, it all boils down to nukes.
* Chemists are also seen as spouting Technobabble in the form of chemical nomenclature (under whose rules names of compounds can get long and messy). Chemists are also sometimes portrayed either as bomb-makers, as drug-makers, or as poisoners. If not, then they will usually have tendencies towards them, such as pyromania or toxomania. Chemistry is also seen as the science that is most harmful to the environment, and this coupled with some chemical disasters and the technobabble spouted by chemists has given rise to ''chemophobia'', an irrational prejudice against "artificial" chemicals.
* Biologists are often portrayed as purveyors of [[BadPeopleAbuseAnimals inhumane experiments on caged animals]], captive [[TestedOnHumans humans]], or any other [[UnwittingTestSubject unwitting subjects]]. In reality most countries severely restrict animal research, researchers are increasingly using alternatives such as cells grown in dishes, and research on humans is generally only permitted on volunteers who are of sound mind and able to give informed consent. [[GodwinsLaw Expect comparisons]] to ThoseWackyNazis.
* Computer scientists have it bad as well, by virtue of computers being a stereotypical nerd interest since they first entered the public eye. Computer scientists (in the rare event they are actually called that) are either reclusive {{Basement Dweller}}s, {{Technobabble}}-spouting academics, or trapped in dead-end tech support jobs.
* Mathematicians are the uber-nerds who even other nerds consider nerds. Physicists look up to them as folks who actually can do maths, but consider them a bit awkward and unsettling and with a tendency to nag them with silly-ass questions along the lines of "why only three spatial dimensions?". This is in spite of the fact that not all mathematics is pure mathematics, and a person with an applied math diploma is quite likely to end up in an extremely well-paid job, usually related to banking.
* Skeptics/critical thinkers also get some flak, see {{The Scully}} for more details. Often portrayed as closed-minded and dogmatic jerks who are out to spoil the fun of believers and are [[SkepticismFailure almost always wrong in attempting to explain paranormal phenomena with natural explanations]].

!!Teachers
Despite being the reason for any profession's continuation. Parents are often blamed for a child's bad behavior, but if the child can barely count to ten on their fingers then it's all the teachers fault. Don't even start with the jokes involving sex or pedophilia. Despite TruthInTelevision and RealLife aspects, not all teachers enjoy, want, or desire extracurricular activities with their students, even if they are in the HotForTeacher or HotLibrarian category. Other insults include becoming a teacher "for the great holidays" and nothing else, digs about the wages (most common in US based shows), and running the gamut from alcoholic to depressive to passive-aggressive to [[HippieTeacher pleasant but useless]]. The reasoning behind teachers as acceptable targets could probably be put down to familiarity - almost everyone in countries where education is mandatory has met a teacher at some point. Not many of us can claim that a marine biologist was nasty to us, but most people had a teacher that they didn't like.
* See also SadistTeacher, for the teachers who use their positions to abuse students.
* One popular insult aimed at teachers is "those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." Teachers of younger children get this particularly badly with comedians often cracking jokes such as "all you have to do is make stuff out of pasta". Tip: before making this comment, try teaching someone who doesn't know how to hold a pencil how to write. The fact that high school teachers are normally very well versed in their chosen field is normally dismissed, leading to characters who became teachers because "they weren't good at anything else".
* Once someone is identified as a piano teacher, you know what will happen.

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}'' has a minor character who majors in anthropology, which is roundly mocked for not serving much utility. He defends his position by saying he's training to become a teacher, which makes Archer laugh even harder as teaching is very likely his only career option.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Daria}}'' shows several teacher stereotypes.
* There also is the stereotype of drama, music or other fine arts teachers as being washed up performers who can't get work anywhere else (see ''Series/TheSteveHarveyShow''). This can be TruthInTelevision. It may be easier to keep a job as a teacher (at least until recently) than to keep a job as an actor or artist.
* Ironically, the last statement is {{subverted|Trope}} in the ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "300 Big Ones" which featured, of all things, a nasty marine biologist.

!!Librarians
Pretty much an AlwaysFemale subset of the SadistTeacher, with the added benefit of never actually helping or teaching anyone. Aside from looks of scorn, most will only get a trademark "SHHHHHHHHHH!" Outside their realm of power, they're depicted as lonely, bitter, anal-aggressive spinsters. This is somewhat amusing, as unless you're going to become an archivist or a cataloger, serving patrons is going to be the majority of what you do. However, as a contrast, there is the HotLibrarian.
* [[MeaningfulName Ms. Censordoll]] from ''WesternAnimation/MoralOrel'' is a text book example of this. Unlike most librarians, she actively embraces censoring books.
* ''Film/ItsAWonderfulLife'' [[spoiler: She's just about to close up the library!!!]] Oh yes, definitely the worst fate that could befall anyone.
* ''Webcomic/{{Unshelved}}'' averts this trope, or rather uses stereotypes of librarians that librarians themselves use (aka Dewey the snarky and hip YA librarian, Mel the overworked and stressed out manager, Tamara the overly cheery children's librarian, the rarely-seen socially challenged and weird cataloger, etc). Colleen is the closest to the standard librarian stereotype, but she's portrayed as being largely a dinosaur in the modern world of librarianship. It also turns the tables in that most of the jokes make fun of library ''patrons''. This may have something to do with the fact that the writer is himself a librarian.
* ''Film/PartyGirl1995'' portrays working in a library relatively accurately (even pointing out that not everyone who works in a library is a librarian--as with doctors, lawyers, and teachers, to be a librarian requires earning a professional degree, in library science in this case). It's therefore become a bit of a cult classic amongst librarians.

!!Home Education
Anyone who's trained at home via anything like correspondence courses ''will'' be at best depicted as incompetent at their profession and at worst outright moronic overall, often without a hint of joking. Though nowadays in real life home computers, the internet, and video streaming technology have made home schooling a valid and effective means of education (sometimes more effective than a classroom setting), this is never the case on the screen.
* A ''ComicBook/ArchieComics'' issue had Jughead's cousin repair an air conditioner for Archie's family. As they're powering it on Jughead remarks his cousin knew what he was doing as he just finished his correspondence course in appliance repair. Cue Archie quipping "Correspondence course?! Now you tell me!" and the ac unit blowing the power for the whole neighborhood.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "Anthology Of Interest I" Dr. Zoidberg remarks he has mail-order degrees in "Murderology" and "Murderonomy" and sets out to solve the case. Needless to say [[TooDumbToLive it's Zoidberg]] and he doesn't accomplish much before being murdered himself.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Underworld]]
!![[CondemnedContestant Criminals]] [[NoHonorAmongThieves in general]]
Break the law. Any law. [[AllCrimesAreEqual It doesn't matter]]. Once you are arrested, expect NoSympathy. People will be happy to laugh at the prospect of your facing PrisonRape. Expect any complaints about cruel and inhuman punishment and sadistic prison staff to be ignored or just acknowledged with a "Well, maybe they shouldn't have broken the law". The HangingJudge is sure that if you were arrested, then you are guilty. [[ConvictedByPublicOpinion So are most people]].

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* On rare occasion this is subverted, as in the prison drama ''Series/{{Oz}}'', in which even sociopathic killers, organized crime lords and Neo-Nazis are fully developed, sympathetic characters.

[[AC:VideoGames]]
* Take any profession from this list. ([[UnacceptableTargets With the noted exception of]] [[DisposableSexWorker women in the sex industry.]]) If a legitimate profession, add a story of blatant corruption or abuse of power that pushes it beyond the bounds of legality. Mix in an [[AcceptableHobbyTargets unusual hobby]]/sexual kink/lifestyle quirk. Season to taste with a dash of [[KickTheDog puppy kicking]]. Result? A typical victim of [[{{VideoGame/Hitman}} Agent 47]].

!!Drug dealers
When you need a villain, look no further. All drug dealers are scum who [[TheAggressiveDrugDealer cruise the playgrounds looking for kids (the younger the better) to sell dope to]]. If you need a BigBad, just make him the leader of the gang. While all criminals get this treatment to a degree, drug dealers are considered especially heinous, in part due to the {{demonization}} they've received due to the American War on Drugs and countless education films. Other criminal professions may at least be portrayed somewhat sympathetically, but rarely in fiction will you find a sympathetic drug dealer. The horrific violence inflicted both on rival criminals and unaffiliated civilians by groups such as the Mexican and Colombian drug cartels in recent decades has also had a profound impact, and suffice to say, there is some TruthInTelevision to their negative portrayal.

[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* ''Film/{{Super}}'' zigzags this trope. The first thing the main character does once he becomes a Superhero is find some drug dealers and bash their heads with a wrench. At first, the media portrays him as a [[DeconstructedTrope psychopath that's brutally assaulting people.]] Later in the movie, the fact that [[AssholeVictim the people he attacked were criminals surfaces]], and the media and the public [[{{Reconstruction}} start to see him as a force for justice]].
* Udre Belicoff in the 2007 ''Film/{{Hitman}}'' film is into drug trafficking as well as arms trading for extra garnish on his career. Agent 47 mocks Udre for supposedly [[GettingHighOnTheirOwnSupply getting high on his supply]] (or maybe he's really that inept!). The former is likely as Uder carelessly leaves loaded magazines out on the display table for his demo arms and 47 even sneaks an exploding brief case into Udre's mansion.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* The protagonists of ''Series/BurnNotice'' always try to justify the things they do to people by explaining that they're criminals. Often they're talking about murderers and human traffickers, but sometimes it's just drug dealers.

[[AC:VideoGames]]
* ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas'': Grove Street Families, the gang that [[PlayerCharacter CJ]] is a part of, are vehemently against the use of hard drugs, though marijuana is apparently okay. Compared to the other gangs in the city besides the Varrios Los Aztecas, the Grove Street families are NeighbourhoodFriendlyGangsters. This also shows up during gameplay: crack dealers are a PinataEnemy that drops $2,000 and a pistol when killed.
* [[{{VideoGame/Hitman}} Agent 47]] is assigned to assassinate his share of drug traffickers. [[VideoGame/HitmanBloodMoney Don Fernando Delgado]] is especially noted for the cocaine ring he's running in Chile, yet he has [[VillainWithGoodPublicity an impeccable reputation]] and the public has no idea he's using his vineyard to hide a cocaine operation. Agent 47 is also contracted to take out his son Manuel D. to make it appear a rival drug lord ordered the hit. The Delgado family storyline is continued in ''VideoGame/{{Hitman2}}'' with Rico Delgado contracted for elimination; this time, a village is being [[AssholeVictim tyranized by his cartels' presence]] making it feel like you're doing them a service eliminating the family leadership here, plus you can even make things poetic by sabotaging a vanity statue being presented to the town folk so it falls onto Rico.

!!Money Launderers
This usually implies criminal activity such as the afrementioned drug dealing, racketeering, arms trade, securities fraud, tax evasion and many more activities typically covered up through washing cash. Money launderers have earned their share of infamy and can pop up in any work about the the Underworld.
[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* In ''Film/TheWolfOfWallStreet'' the main character's downfall begins when he is investigated by the SEC and FBI, but he refuses to leave the life he has built. They use a drug dealer and a SwissBankAccount to launder their illgotten windfall.

[[AC:LiveActionTelevision]]
* ''Series/WalkerTexasRanger'' has money laundering factor into cases on occasions. In one episode, "The Big Bingo Bamboozle", it appears that this trope will be PlayedStraight, but it is {{Subverted}} when it turns out a sweet senior lady is running bingo games that acts as a cover for money laundering taking place and she may not seem malicious. However, there is much more to her than meets the eye.

!!Women in the Sex Industry
Whether they're exotic dancers, adult models, porn actresses, or sex workers, women who make a living with their bodies are only treated sympathetically if they have some kind of circumstance putting them into that line of work, like a [[SingleMomStripper child to feed]] or college bills to pay. Women who actually ''enjoy'' the work are treated as airheaded bimbos at best and crackwhores at worst. Sex workers of all stripes also make [[DisposableSexWorker easy prey for murderers]], and when they become victims there is usually a subtle (or not-so-subtle) hint that they deserved it for being less innocent (and sympathetic) than a "wholesome" woman.

[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* The "Victim of Circumstance" version is subverted in ''Film/IndependenceDay''; Jasmine, though technically a SingleMomStripper, is clearly intelligent, a good mother, in a committed relationship with a decorated Marine officer whom she eventually marries, and not ashamed in the least of her profession. She chats about it casually with the ''First Lady'', for crying out loud.
* Averted in ''Working Girls'', which neither criticizes nor glamorizes women in the sex industry, but depicts them as average people doing their job. It's a DeconstructorFleet of all of the tropes associated with prostitution in fiction.

[[AC:LiveActionTelevision]]
* ''Series/PennAndTellerBullshit'' dedicated an episode to subverting this trope, showing that many prostitutes are just doing a job like anyone else, albeit one that's illegal in most jurisdictions. Though they played the Men in the Sex Industry part (see below) straight by not even acknowledging that they exist.

!!Men in the Sex Industry
[[BlatantLies They don't exist.]] Or the prostitutes don't, anyway. Male pimps exist, and they're shown as cruel, sadistic slave drivers who deliberately seek out young runaways, demand huge cuts of the night's profits, punish even the slightest transgressions by raping or brutally beating the girl in question, and, if they're really nasty, will either get their girls addicted to drugs to make them even more dependent on them or employ illegally-smuggled slaves. Also, God help any girl who tries to flee, as capture and a subsequent CruelAndUnusualDeath is always around the corner. Needless to say, there is TruthInTelevision in this portrayal. The only ''good'' thing that they ever might be seen doing is dealing with cheap, violent, or creepy johns, but even that isn't guaranteed.

[[AC:Film]]
* The Dirty Harry film ''Film/MagnumForce'' hits everything: the high-class hooker who goes to see her pimp, whereupon said pimp shows himself as the nasty and brutish thug he is, by robbing her, including the money she thought she was hiding, then brutally murders her by pouring a can of drain cleaner down her throat. (That he's so CrazyPrepared he routinely carries a can of drain cleaner on him shows how much of a horrible bastard he is.) Shortly thereafter he becomes the AssholeVictim as he is murdered by a vigilante police officer. (Not Harry, though.)
* ''Film/TrueRomance'': Discussed; Clarence ends up killing his new ex-hooker girlfriend Alabama's abusive pimp on the advice of his SpiritAdvisor, who argues that the cops would throw a party at the news.

[[AC:Theater]]
* Among StockCharacters for the plays of Titus Maccius Creator/{{Plautus}} and probably nearly every other ancient Roman playwright, the pimp was a stock villain and preferred ButtMonkey for the clever slave to cheat and con at virtually every opportunity. He deserved to have the wool pulled over his eyes because invariably, he was a cruel slave-driver to his girls, an impious and godless reprobate, and a cheat and con himself in what was already a filthy business. Even moneylenders were portrayed as more honest and virtuous than this scumbag.

[[AC: VideoGames]]
* Pointedly averted with Zimos in ''VideoGame/SaintsRowTheThird''. He's a very classic pimp, but he's also a hell of a good friend, gives his women good wages, housing, and even lets them unionize. And [[PapaWolf if somebody hurts or kills one of his girls, he'll make sure they'll have a nice chat with the end of a hitman's gun.]]

[[AC: WebComics]]
* Bling the Pimpmaster and his cronies (including his right hand Shine the Pimpjockey and ''his'' right hand Cash the Pimpjockey) from the roleplays of ''WebComic/WhiteDarkLife'' are the classic portrayal of a pimp mentioned above played horrifyingly straight, to the point where many of their former captives have been [[BrokenBird mentally shattered]] by the experience. Bling's organization, the Happy Sperm Club, is noted for straight-up ''kidnapping'' and imprisoning girls -- sometimes even ''prepubescent'' girls -- and brutally conditioning them to sexually service men. (Said conditioning often takes the form of [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown beatings]] and starvation until the women are simply too weak to resist unwelcome advances. Needless to say, not all victims ''survive'' this treatment.) However, Bling is also noted to care very much about his customers and his cronies, to the point where his business model would be downright commendable if he'd chosen a less immoral profession, and he reacts ''very'' poorly to his subordinates being injured, arrested, or killed. He actually goes very well out of his way to stay under the radar to protect his clients' reputations, as well. All of this does nothing to make him sympathetic, due to his aforementioned horrible treatment of women. One of his former captives (and one of the main heroes), Lillian Schnieder, was so broken by her time as a HSC captive that she couldn't so much as ''touch'' a man without immediately starting to remove her clothes and get ReadyForLovemaking. By the time of the roleplays proper, she's gotten over this (thanks to a combination of lots of therapy, a loving boyfriend willing to go so far as to actively train her to resist sexual harassment, and discovering and eventually gaining control over her BigDamnHeroes-obsessed, superpowered alter ego) and is even in a healthy relationship, but she still has nightmares about her time in captivity (and has said herself that she's mentally scarred and said scars will likely never fully heal), she still can't sleep with clothes on, and she regards both the Happy Sperm Club's continued existence and her former status as "the ultimate whore" as an ''extreme'' BerserkButton.

!!Strip Club Employees
Almost no one at a strip club is ever portrayed sympathetically. The dancers are often drugged-out and are frequently at war with one another, as well as being exceptionally manipulative with the patrons (anyone who has worked in a strip club will tell you that this is often TruthInTelevision, but not to the extent commonly shown), in addition to occasionally being over-the-hill has-beens who are still in it only because there's nowhere else for them to go, the [=DJs=] are usually idiotic cokeheads banging girls on the side for preferential tip cuts (with the girls often getting preferential song choices and stage time in return), the bouncers are barely-verbal thugs just in it for the potential to beat people up who are frequently either on the take or members of criminal organizations, the bartenders are thieves who water down drinks and frequently overcharge patrons or grossly overinflate tabs by adding nonexistent purchases, the valets will go on joyrides with your car and will probably steal something important that you made the mistake of leaving there, the security heads are crooks who turn a blind eye to the illegal activities of their staff and who will do their best to stonewall any lawsuit or criminal investigation when something does happen, the house moms are abusive and exploitative, frequently demand exorbitant tip cuts, and will gleefully throw any girl who doesn't bow to their demands under the bus, and the managers are disgusting, perverted sleazeballs who frequently demand sexual favors from the girls in order to guarantee their continued employment or preferable scheduling, in addition to having ties to organized crime (and as far as fiction is concerned, they're ''never'' female); particularly unpleasant examples will either keep the girls strung out and dependent on them for drugs or will employ illegally-smuggled slaves who are kept in line with the threat of being reported to immigration authorities if they don't comply with their demands.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Miscellaneous]]

!![[EgomaniacHunter Hunters]]
Usually portrayed as a closet [[WesternAnimation/{{Tarzan}} Clayton]] or [[Manga/KimbaTheWhiteLion Viper Snakely]], hunters in media love nothing more than [[KillTheCutie kill off baby animals]] and [[AndYourLittleDogToo their parents]], and personality-wise, totally egotistical and TriggerHappy.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' actually averted this. The hunters in "Rogue Planet" ''are'' the episode's antagonists, but they're not actually outright evil. They're simply unaware that their chosen quarry happens to be fully sapient.

!!Guidance Counselors
The standard joke being that no one ''[[TheCobblersChildrenHaveNoShoes who became a freakin' guidance counselor]]'' has any business helping young people decide what to do with their lives.

!![[BreakTheMotivationalSpeaker Motivational Speakers]]
Take all the stereotypes of other "those who can't, teach" professions, and stick them in front of a room of office workers who are there not by choice, but by managerial coercion. Let all those office workers regress to the way they behaved the last time they were forced to sit in rows in front of an authority figure. Now take all that simmering resentment and put it in the heads of ''[[UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist sitcom characters]]'', and stand well back.

!!Priests
Doesn't matter what religious order, or whatever good they might do in the community - as far as a lot of the population is concerned, the PedophilePriest stereotype is invoked. In the cases where it isn't invoked, they're portrayed as rich aristocrat-types who are somewhat backward, despite as a rule having graduate degrees and many priests making somewhat less than teachers (there's a lot of clergy who have had to rely on charity to survive old age).
* Even older than the PedophilePriest stereotype is the stereotype of the priest as a willful con artist, someone who manipulates people's fears and superstitions in order to live without working. Voltaire loved this one: ''"The first priest was the first rogue who met the first fool."''
* An even older one is the stereotype that priests often claim to be in the name of God but that they in fact are still doing sins. Literature/ReynardTheFox for instance spoke about one brief scene in which the priest was making out with a woman and plenty of medieval intellectuals spoke out against the hypocrisy of the church when they made themselve luxurious all the while Jesus said that you had to live poor and sober.
* ''Sleepers'' inverts the PedophilePriest stereotype; not only is the priest not the one who molested the four main characters, but he actively helps them punish the men who did.

!![[NunTooHoly Nuns]]
There are too ways a Nun is depicted, she's a nun, at least that's what it says on her job resume. However, she acts nothing like what she's claiming to be. Instead, she can be violent, destructive, steal from the collection plate, wear revealing clothing, be perverted like the best of them, forget all about her chastity vows, take God's name in vain and swear so much she'd make a sailor cry, not to mention that she seems to have ideas or notions that directly contradict the Church she belongs to. In other words, she's anything but the normal image of a member of the Church you'd expect.

Or she's a nun who takes her job too seriously and is extremely stern. If she's running a school, expect her to bully and treat her students like crap with her other co-workers.

!!Slavers
Since SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil, anyone who deals in slaves, and generally, anyone who owns slaves, will be depicted in the most negative light possible, and are highly likely to suffer a KarmicDeath. The same applies for hired slave-drivers and slave-catchers.

[[AC:Literature]]
* In ''Literature/{{Mattimeo}}'', the [[TheHeavy most prominent antagonists]] are a band of slavers led by the depraved fox Slagar the Cruel. They pose as circus performers to gain entry into Redwall Abbey, then [[SlippingAMickey put sleeping drugs in the Abbeydwellers' drinks]]. When they're asleep, Slagar's band takes the Abbey's children to the kingdom of Malkariss, where the children would have been slaves for life if the heroes hadn't eventually saved them. Slagar's band [[OffscreenVillainy had already taken many other children]] before targeting the Abbey.

!!Landlords
Between their role in various housing crises and the inherently passive nature of the work (as it's largely just buying the property and waiting for rent to come in), landlords frequently don't get any respect. While the low-level homeowners renting out a bit of their property tend to get the comparatively lower-level CrankyLandlord, who is nasty and loutish but not much else, the wealthier ones who actively buy up lots of property with the purpose of renting it out will often be characterized as cruel, unempathetic, classist, gentrifying, and desiring nothing more than a return to serfdom, who would boot a cancer patient and her baby out on the street if she missed one month's rent or spilled milk on the floor.

[[AC:Anime and Manga]]
* ''Manga/DragonBall'''s Frieza, of all characters, was stated by creator Akira Toriyama to be based on a landlord, with his business of conquering worlds, murdering their inhabitants, and selling them off for massive profits being essentially landlording on a massive scale.

!!Unemployed
Just when you thought you could escape this trope, they are lazy young people wasting their parents' and taxpayers' money, contributing nothing to society. Or 'welfare queens', though the latter is [[OnceAcceptableTargets strongly associated with racist stereotypes]].

[[/folder]]
----

''[[LongList Did we miss anyone?]]''

* Series/TalesFromTheCrypt The TV adaptation of [[Recap/TalesFromTheCryptS5E1DeathOfSomeSalesmen the above comic]] [[AdaptationalVillainy makes the salesman]] a ConMan who sells fake cemetery plots to relatives of recently deceased people and doesn't care that he's takes what's left from old windows.

* Creator/ECComics Haunt of Fear has the story Death Of Some Salesmen about a good natures salesman who ends up trying to sell his protect to a back water couple who has had enough of being sold bad products by Salesman.

* Series/TalesFromTheCrypt In the TV adaptation Recap/TalesFromTheCryptS5E1DeathOfSomeSalesmen makes the salesmen a conman who sells fake plots of land to give to old town residents and doesn't care that he's takes what's left from old windows.

If a character is employed by a three-letter agency like the CIA, NSA, DEA and FBI or a non-American equivalent (or a GovernmentAgencyOfFiction loosely inspired by portrayals of these agencies), you can bet that they will be spooky, powerful [[TheMenInBlack Men in Black]] who carry the characters' lives in their hands, usually not often for the best, with only the most benign examples being portrayed as {{Punch Clock Villain}}s. In a serious historical or political drama, if not part of a GovernmentConspiracy, they may often simply be portrayed as overly gung ho or incompetent.

Chronic rip-off merchants and the annoying disturbance of cold callers.

%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample !![[OperatorFromIndia Telemarketers]]
%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample One of the few professions that you never see a positive portrayal of.

Before the world was full of internet ads, telemarketers, and TV commercials the best way to sell your product is to get a group of individuals to go door to door talking and selling what your product is. back then this kind of character was as common as cockroaches and was treated as such. Cartoons and movies treated them at best annoying failure who try to stick there nose into others lives to sell you there unless product and at worse a sleazy conman who gets off in robbing others in there hard earn cash.

!![[HonestJohnsDealership Used Car Salesmen]]
Chronic rip-off merchants.

Overgrown [[FratBro Frat Bros]] who party, do drugs (cocaine is popular, especially during the eighties) and hire hookers with their clients' money. Stockbrokers are portrayed as both cold-hearted, for abandoning stocks of failing companies even if it means clients will lose money and employees will lose jobs, and naïve, for rushing to buy stocks of fraudulent companies and inflating their price. The Wall Street stock exchange is portrayed as a chaotic free-for-all with brokers screaming and clutching bills, causing prices to soar or plummet for no apparent reason. In the bathrooms, brokers can partake in some insider trading and do more drugs. Stockbrokers are also blamed for market crashes, and are targets of SuicideAsComedy jokes.

* In ''Film/TheWolfOfWallStreet'', A New York stockbroker recounts to the audience how he made his fortune through shady (and outright illegal) stock manipulations, and the hedonistic drug/sex-fueled lifestyle he built with that fortune. His downfall begins when he is investigated by the SEC and FBI, but he refuses to leave the life he has built. They use a drug dealer and a SwissBankAccount to launder their illgotten windfall.

[[folder:Lawyers]]
!![[AmoralAttorney Lawyers]]
Since they're trained to defend anyone, even if their client is [[ObviouslyEvil obviously guilty]] (or to prosecute anyone, even if the defendant is blatantly innocent), lawyers are often labelled as prolific, greedy liars who will [[LoopholeAbuse find even the most vague of loopholes]] in the law to get a good verdict. While there are, of course, [[Series/BostonLegal positive]] [[Franchise/AceAttorney portrayals]] [[Literature/ToKillAMockingbird in media]], such as ''Franchise/PerryMason'', they are still normally villains by default, and the source of many morality-based jokes. See EvilLawyerJoke. It also doesn't help that the media is full of FrivolousLawsuit stories. Usually defense attorneys or corporate lawyers get the brunt of this, but even prosecutors and other less prominent examples will get this treatment, with the former often portrayed as [[KnightTemplar zealots obsessed with "purging" all traces of criminality everywhere]] and the latter as literal [[RulesLawyer Rules Lawyers]]. The fact that any evil lawyer defending a guilty client or prosecuting an innocent is always paired against another lawyer trying to do the inverse seems to go over everyone's heads. In real life, most of the "villainous" behaviors of lawyers are in fact fully justified, such as their being willing to defend anyone (a legal defense is a basic human right that everyone is entitled to, and in fact the ''goal'' of lawyers is to be an {{amoral|attorney}} LawfulNeutral PunchClockHero / PunchClockVillain depending on who they are representing)[[note]]Not to mention that many criminal attorneys, at least in the U.S., are court-appointed public defenders ([[Main/MirandaRights "If you can not afford an attorney one will be provided to you at no cost"]]) and don't get to choose their clients[[/note]] and apparent money-grubbing behaviors (being a lawyer is ''expensive''. Even if you ignore what they pay for legal school, a lawyer working on contingency is paying a ''lot'' of legal fees on your behalf and so, if he wins him taking a good 30% to 40% of your winnings is to cover that. If he loses, he's just out all the money and time he put in. Also, their refusal to give free legal advice is because, if they give you legal advice, you are now their client and they are now obligated to defend you).

[[AC:Film]]
%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample * ''Film/{{Hook}}'': "KILL THE LAWYER!"
* Deconstructed in ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartII'': The ever-futuristic world of 2015 has all lawyers abolished. Seems like a joke on the profession... but Doc Brown noted that due to this, Marty's future children get long, ''long'' prison sentences for minor crimes.
* ''Film/IndependenceDay'' has an offhand mockery of the profession when David told a coworker that everyone close to them must escape New York City before the aliens attack. The coworker's response? "I better call my brother! I better call my housekeeper! I better call my lawyer!.... Nah, forget my lawyer!"
* It was lost on very few viewers that the most ignominious death in ''Film/JurassicPark''--the one involving the portapotty--was reserved for the lawyer. Who is referred to by Hammond as "the blood sucking lawyer"[[note]]Interestingly in the novel the blood sucking lawyer not only survives to the end but is actually a heroic figure, helping Dr. Grant guide Tim and Lex through the jungle. The "abandons the kids and gets eaten by a T-rex" death (though not while on the toilet) was reserved for a character that didn't appear in the film[[/note]].