History Main / AuthorPhobia

* Averted by prolific movie producer Charles H. Schneer, whose fear of snakes and rats made him avoid putting them in his movies at all, and would frequently [[ExecutiveMeddling forbid]] his frequent collaborator Creator/RayHarryhausen from including them in films they did together. Harryhausen, by contrast, seems to have been especially interested in the idea of a giant snake as a cool set piece and a fun StopMotion animation challenge, and would frequently pitch them - and, occasionally, RodentsOfUnusualSize - in his concept art, usually to no avail, although a handful of snake-like creatures did make it into a few of their movies - the [[SnakePeople transformed Sadi]] in ''Film/The7thVoyageOfSinbad'', the [[OurHydrasAreDifferent Hydra]] in ''Film/JasonAndTheArgonauts'', and {{Medusa}} in ''Film/ClashOfTheTitans1981''.

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': Stewie Griffin's fear of the cover of the 1977 Queen album ''Music/NewsOfTheWorldQueen'' in the episode "Killer Queen" was based on Creator/SethMacFarlane's fear of the cover when he was a child.

* Creator/GuillermoDelToro has said that he despises cows and horses, considering them "perverted creatures" and "evil motherfuckers". This rarely comes up in his movies because then he'd have to have the animals on set, but any character who is associated with either animal in his films is likely to be a villain. A good example would be the [[UsefulNotes/TheFrancoRegime Falangist]] officers in ''Film/PansLabyrinth'', who are frequently seen on horseback. The evil [[AllTrollsAreDifferent troll]] Mr. Wink, featured in ''Film/HellboyIITheGoldenArmy'', also has a rather bovine appearance, and the one of the {{Kaiju}} from ''Film/PacificRim'', Raiju, has facial plats which split open to reveal a rather horselike head.

** Part of the reason Del Toro's family left Mexico was that his dad got kidnapped and held for ransom. The loss of a father is a big motif in his work - a lot of his protagonists are fatherless or lose their father over the course of the story. On the other hand, evil father figures show up pretty often as well - most overtly with the WickedStepfather [[Film/PansLabyrinth Cpt. Vidal]] and the deconstructed StandardFiftiesFather that is [[Film/TheShapeOfWater Richard Strickland]].

[[folder:Myths & Religion]]
* In the past quite some religions have been misused to give people a reason to dislike, hate or fear someone based on a few lines that can be easily misinterpreted in the scripture. A historical example is the anti-Semitism that was rampant for many centuries because some priests and popes used the fact that Jesus had been arrested on commission of some Jewish elders that didn't like the guy to justify violent measures against the Jewish population. All that while Jesus was Jewish by birth. Another example is that several medieval monks used the [[AdamAndEvePlot story of Adam and Eve]] to "prove" that all women were seductresses and should be considered possible minions of Satan. Open the ''Literature/MalleusMaleficarum'', a medieval book about witchcraft, and you'll read pages and pages of misogynistic commentary. This has also been misused against individual religions or to smear all religions by association.
[[/folder]]

* Creator/KenLoach is very critical and angry about the British government, especially concerning how they mistreat the lower class and their policies in Ireland. The rest of his work also shows a strong opposition to fascism, Nazism and other right-wing totalitarianism.

* Creator/TerryGilliam's dislike of totalitarianism and bureaucracy frequently shines through in his films, most notably ''Film/{{Brazil}}''.

** Creator/RobertHolmes ''hated'' filing his taxes - as his role on ''Who'' combined writer and script editor, he was stuck in a complicated and Kafkaesque financial situation where he had to pay tax on his earnings twice. This annoyed him so much that he wrote "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E4TheSunMakers The Sun Makers]]", a story about an ObstructiveBureaucrat civilization that taxes people to suicide before the Doctor inspires a populist revolt to murder them all and cheer about it.

* Frieza from ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' was based on nightmares that Creator/AkiraToriyama had as a child. He is by far the most nightmarish of that manga's villains as a direct result.

* Creator/GuillermoDelToro has said that he despises cows and horses, considering them "perverted creatures" and "evil motherfuckers". This rarely comes up in his movies because then he'd have to have the animals on set, but any character who is associated with either animal in his films is likely to be a villain. A good example would be the [[UsefulNotes/TheFrancoRegime Falangist]] officers in ''Film/PansLabyrinth'', who are frequently seen on horseback. The evil [[AllTrollsAreDifferent troll]] Mr. Wink, featured in ''Film/HellboyIITheGoldenArmy'', also has a rather bovine appearance.

* Webcomic/AquaRegia: Fluhor is terrified of dystopias and military repression, considering the story of his country and the hunt of artists, students and more who opposed the regimes, it's an understandable fear.

Sometimes a creator draws upon their personal NightmareFuel in an attempt to make their villains more fearsome and intimidating. For instance, if the author as a child was bitten by a venomous spider and nearly died, they might make the BigBad of their story a hideous GiantSpider. For them, it can be a way to overcome their fears or tensions or to at least give it a new meaning by using it as a trope in their work. Other times they just use their personal hatred of something to provide an {{Aesop}} to inform their audience why they too should dislike this particular thing. Can result in {{Propaganda}}, AuthorTract or {{Anvilicious}}ness if treated too seriously or heavily. If audience members have no problems with the author's personal distastes it might result in FlameWar, especially if it's treated irrationally or without much knowledge of the subject. For instance, if an author has a fear of gorillas he may write a story where his characters are attacked by a KillerGorilla. As many biologists can tell you: gorillas really aren't vicious aggressive monsters who just randomly attack you. In such cases, the author may be accused of being an UnreliableNarrator who just acknowledges people's prejudices about a matter or even makes his audience more frightened of stuff they originally weren't that anxious about.

* ''Film/ANightmareOnElmStreet1984'': Creator/WesCraven named Freddy Krueger after a bully who harassed him and based his appearance on a disfigured hobo who scared him as a child.
** Craven's earlier film, ''Film/TheLastHouseOnTheLeft'', has a villainous character named Krug, after the same bully.

* Creator/JKRowling transferred her arachnophobia to Ron Weasley and features some truly frightening {{Giant Spider}}s as recurring minor villains. Her later book ''Troubled Blood'' - about a CreepyCrossdresser SerialKiller - was infamously informed by her fear of {{transgender}} people, and its follow-up, ''The Ink Black Heart'', is about [[PoliticalCorrectnessIsEvil political correctness gone mad]], and is usually read as a thinly-veiled metaphor for the backlash against ''Troubled Blood'' - though she has insisted that most of it was written before any of that happened.

* Creator/JKRowling transferred her arachnophobia to Ron Weasley and features some truly frightening {{Giant Spider}}s as recurring minor villains.