History Main / BreadAndCircuses

* It might be better to ponder a little while if this trope applies to your country as well, even if you're not from Brazil or other such country. Have you noticed how European, American and Canadian people have less and less interest in what the politicians are actually doing? Less and less people vote, corruption is often shrugged off as an inevitable evil... But at least we have the TV and the Internet, right? And at least we're doing better than those [[BananaRepublic poor people in Africa]] so what are we complaining about?

* Hamas spends a majority of their funds on social development, the rest is spend on bombs.

* [[YourMileAgeMayVary Arguably]], the Chinese development makes this an implicit part of the social contract: The Chinese Communist Party has brought high and steady levels of development into the country and eased restrictions on civil rights that are not politiscised. In return, they expect political obedience or, at least, non-involvement. The growing middle Chinese middle and upper classes have (mostly) complied.

* In the film ''Pan's Labyrinth'' the spanish fascist government of Franco is shown issuing bread rations to the starving peasants who remain loyal to the regime. It should be noted this was pretty much dead on accurate; to help deal with the fairly popular Republicans, and to a lesser extent the communists, Franco's government used food rations as a way to gain public support.

* [[YourMileAgeMayVary Arguably]], the Chinese development makes this an implicit part of the social contract: The Chinese Communist Party has brough high and steady levels of development into the country and eased restrictions on civil rights that are not politiscised. In return, they expect political obediance or, at least, non-involvement. The growing middle Chinese middle and upper classes have (mostly) complied.

Evil governments are usually depicted as rabbles of power (and money) grubbing, backstabbing despots who each want to cut themselves the largest piece of the pie before it rots completely- at the expense of the Joes and Janes in the slums. When a revolutionary hero rises from the dregs and sets everything in it's proper place, everyone's happy and all ends well.

* Mongol's empire in ''JusticeLeague'' drew obvious parallels to the Roman Empire. The Martian Manhunter finds out there's mass unemployment and poverty, but people are kept entertained by the [[BloodSport gladiatorial games]].

* ''{{Wall-E}}'' is a partial subversion in that they've been living this way for so long they've actually gotten bored with all this.

* In the film ''Pan's Labyrinth'' the spanish fascist government of Franco is shown issuing bread rations to the starving peasants who remain loyal to the regime. It should be noted this was pretty much dead on accurate; to help deal with the fairly popular Republicans, and to a lesser extent the communists, Franco's government used food rations as a way to gain public support.

* This is exactly what happened in Stalinist Russia. (Stalin himself is said to have said "People with full bellies don't make revolutions." Quite the cheek really.) Small surprise that many older Russians kinda miss him now that one of the country's big exports is organized crime....
** The victims of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor Holodomor]] beg to differ.
*** You make the mistake that Russians and Ukrainians are the same. We're not.
*** The Troper above also made the mistake of assuming that harming one section of a country would inspire unrest in the rest of it. As long as the ''majority'' of people are happy...
*** Try "the rest of the world." Many US intellectuals and even some celebrities went out of their way to PRAISE Stalin's treatment of the people, blithely ignoring all indications that a lot of people were suffering. In terms of speed of killing, Stalin killed half as many people as Jews were killed in the Holocaust, in about a quarter of the time. No-one gives a crap now (as most of the rest of the world doesn't even realize Ukrainians aren't Russian) but there was a REASON a lot of Ukrainian peasantry thought the Nazi occupation was the ''lesser'' of two evils.

* A few cynics say this trope (along with [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO COINTELPRO]]) was used to curve the civil rights/black power and feminist movements.

[[OrderOfTheStick http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Bread_and_Circuses_3673.png]]
[[caption-width:225:[[LampshadeHanging And you WILL be distracted from our brutal oppressive regime until Saturday!]]]]
->''The best fortress is to be found in the love of the people''

-->-- '''{{Juvenal}}, Satire 10.77-81'''

**The villains at the top realize the dangers of a ZeroPercentApprovalRating and attempt to "buy over" the people in the most effective way possible- by improving their quality of life. The LowestCommonDenominator is willing to cling to this promise at all cost.

**Simply put, there is peace in a sense and there is enough food to keep everyone alive. If the government is toppled chaos will ensue and nobody wants that, even if things will eventually become better.

**Sure, the people in charge are bad enough, but look at all the others lurking out there waiting for the chance to take over -- or worse, stage a civil war over who gets to take over in the EvilPowerVacuum, with attendant cross-fire. NO THANKS.

Note that because people are GullibleLemmings, BreadAndCircuses can easily come into play for democracies as well as authoritarian governments.

!!Examples:

[[folder:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]

[[folder:ComicBooks]]

[[folder:{{Film}}]]

** TruthInTelevision: Roman citizens were given free bread at the Colosseum.

* In the film Pan's Labyrinth the spanish fascist government of Franco is shown issuing bread rations to the starving peasants who remain loyal to the regime. It should be noted this was pretty much dead on accurate; to help deal with the fairly popular Republicans, and to a lesser extent the communists, Franco's government used food rations as a way to gain public support
* In Peter Watkin's ''Privilege'', set in the "near future", the British government uses a Pop star's immense popularity to keep their youth "happy, off the streets...and out of politics".

[[folder:{{Literature}}]]

* Like most other instances of TruthInTelevision, this shows up in TerryPratchett's ''{{Discworld}}''.
** [[{{Discworld}} The Patrician]] runs Ankh-Morpork well, so most of his people don't question all the shady activities involved in the running. [[spoiler:Except the mimes.]] So far he's been reinstated after every deposition. Although he has been described as Machiavellian (for a given level of Machiavelli, anyway), unlike the quote above he does not fortify himself through being loved (in fact most either dislike or are indifferent to him), but by being ''necessary'', and better than any alternative.
*** Machiavellian? "Compared to the Patrician, Machiavelli could not have run a whelk stall."

** In ''Discworld/InterestingTimes'' some middle-class revolutionaries try to overthrow the empire in the name of the workers. Rincewind asks them if they've checked what the workers would prefer to happen. (They haven't.)
** In ''Discworld/{{Mort}}'', an evil Duke is plotting to murder a royal family to become king. A quick glimpse into a possible future reveals that he actually would have ruled ''extremely'' well.
* The Party in ''NineteenEightyFour'' goes much easier on the proles than it does on Party members.

* How the old Republic of Haven became the ''[[PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny People's]]'' Republic of Haven in the ''HonorHarrington'' stories. The Republic guaranteed its population a "Basic Living Stipend" and most of them went onto the Dole, causing a collapse in the Haven economy, which they tried to fix by conquering their neighbours, and looting their economies, and putting their people on the Dole, which meant they had to conquer more of their neighbours...

[[folder:LiveActionTV]]

[[folder:{{Music}}]]

[[folder:TabletopGames]]

** As of the 5e Rulebook, living on a "Civilized World" in the Imperium is a sentence to eventual death by 20/7 slave labour, with the chance of also having your remains turned into the shell for a skull probe. The Imperium does not really fit under Bread and Circuses because the population is controlled by fear and brute force (Inquisition, Arbites, etc).

[[folder:VideoGames]]

* In ''{{Tales of Symphonia}}'', the heroes have trouble getting help in towns that have made deals with the oppressive Desians-- things may be bad, but at least nobody they know gets taken to the Human Ranches.

* The player can use this trope in {{Cybernations}}: building slave labor camps hurts your nation's happiness rating, but you can cancel out that effect by building stadiums and police stations. You can also build intelligence agencies to lessen the happiness penalty that comes with having a high tax rate (this also allows your nation to recruit more secret agents).
*Tolbi in {{Golden Sun}}. Sure, the Emperor Babi has kidnapped a holy child to force her home town to build him a lighthouse, and he want's to live forever, and crushes free speech, but he also provides an Annual Gladiatorial festival, and the Tolbians are some of the richest people in the world, and support their Emperor to the fullest.
**Tolbi is essentially Rome.

[[folder:WebComics]]
* In ''OrderOfTheStick'', Celia [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0619.html invokes]] the second reason for why Halley shouldn't kill the head of the thieves guild: the SuccessionCrisis would harm people, and give the MOB a chance to get into the city.
** The Empire of Blood also applies this trope. This being Order of the Stick, [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0741.html it naturally gets lampshaded]]. Now the trope page image at the top of this page.
* In ''GirlGenius'', one of the Baron's soldiers [[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20090116 asks another whether the Baron sent soldiers]]. He had, in fact, sent barrels of booze. Besides the good will, those drunk on that would make no trouble.
** [[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20090225 Later]], Gil defends him on BreadAndCircuses grounds.

[[folder:WesternAnimation]]

[[folder:RealLife]]
* As mentioned above, the TropeNamer was AncientRome, where the poor would receive free wheat and have gladiatorial shows staged for them to keep them happy. Although it's often said that "the Emperor" handed out the bread (or wheat) to placate his subjects, the practice predates the foundation of the Empire by ''centuries'' and the food was was rarely if ever actually handed out by the Emperor in person.

* This is exactly what happened in Stalinist Russia (Stalin himself is said to have said 'People with full bellies don't make revolutions'. Quite the cheek really). Small surprise that many older Russians kinda miss him now that one of the country's big exports is organized crime....

**** The Troper above also made the mistake of assuming that harming one section of a country would inspire unrest in the rest of it. As long as the ''majority'' of people are happy...
*****Try "the rest of the world." Many US intellectuals and even some celebrities went out of their way to PRAISE Stalin's treatment of the people, blithely ignoring all indications that a lot of people were suffering. In terms of speed of killing, Stalin killed half as many people as Jews were killed in the Holocaust, in about a quarter of the time. No one gives a crap now (as most of the rest of the world doesn't even realize Ukrainians aren't Russian) but there was a REASON a lot of Ukrainian peasantry thought the Nazi occupation was the ''lesser'' of two evils.

* In ''The Bottom Billion'' Collier says this is much more likely to take place when the evil dictator is in a stable position. If he expects to rule for a long time and to pass the country on to his sons (even nowadays) then it is in his interests to live the good life in a sustainable fashion and to provide a good economy. When revolutionaries take over and realize that they can themselves be revolted against, they simply asset strip the country as quickly as possible and aim to retire on the proceeds of their Swiss bank accounts.

*Some see the CueCullen trope as this for rabid fanbases. Distracting them from other things that may or may not be wrong with the project what ever it happens to be.

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->''Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions ? everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: [[TropeNamer bread and circuses]].''

** The Empire of Blood also applies this trope. This being Order of the Stick, [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0741.html it naturally gets lampshaded]].

** The Empire of Blood also applies this trope. This being Order of the Stick, {{http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0741.html it naturally gets lampshaded}}.