History Main / Dehumanization

* ''Series/TheWheelOfTime2021'': Seanchan don't view damane (enslaved channelers) as really being human at all. Renna, who's the suldam tasked with breaking Egwene when she's enslaved, explicitly tells her this and acts pitying that she'd ever believed herself to be human as this will make training even harder. The area where the damane are held is even called "the kennels", indicating the Seanchan see them as just attack dogs.

* ''Series/TheWheelOfTime2021'': Seanchan don't view damane (enslaved channelers) as really being human at all. Renna, who's the suldam tasked with breaking Egwene when she's enslaved, explicitly tells her this and acts pitying that she'd ever believed herself to be human as this will make training even harder.

** Then there's the homeless episode, where the head of homeless studies treats the homeless as [[ZombieApocalypse an infestation of undead]].[[note]]Unfortunately, he's not completely wrong -- something has caused the local population of lower-class people to demand money and ''only'' money, without taking the time to eat or drink between demands, even when ''they're staring down the gun of riled survivors''.[[/note]]

* The Australian thriller and serial killer biopic ''Snow Town'', which was based on a true story, is essentially the story of a charismatic psychopath convincing a group of socially disadvantaged and alienated locals that it was morally acceptable to torture and kill other members of their community in order to perpetuate a social security scam, providing that they were undeserving of life to begin with. [[AcceptableTargets Some of the targets were pedophiles]], but others were dehumanized (and tortured and killed) for being members of harmless groups, like being gay or obese. The unsettling thing here is that the writers clearly did their homework, to the point that the rhetoric will sound eerily familiar to anybody familiar with Adelaide's impoverished outer suburbs (and the satellite city of Murray Bridge).

* CallAHumanAMeatbag: Um...[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin calling a human a meatbag]].

** Let's not forget [[ANaziByAnyOtherName the Daleks]] -- their {{Catchphrase}}, "EXTERMINATE!", perfectly demonstrates [[AbsoluteXenophobe their attitude towards all non-Daleks]]. In the words of Dalek Sec, in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E13Doomsday Doomsday]]":

** Slavery is technically illegal in the Seven Kingdoms, but [[KickTheSonOfABitch none of the locals particularly minded]] when Ramsay Bolton turned hated traitor Theon Greyjoy into his [[TheIgor "creature"]]. Part of the dehumanization process involved giving Theon a humiliating slave name ("Reek"), mutilating his body so that he and the people around would see him as a freak, locking him in dog cages and not allowing him to bathe or eat human food. The process worked so effectively that almost everybody he interacted with actively started talking and treating him as non-human and Theon responded to his sister's rescue attempt by biting her arm (in the same way a cornered dog would) and running back in the dog cage. This is partly because he's been tricked previously by Ramsay into thinking he was being rescued, after which the worst was done.

-> ''"Falm... my friend... I would have you understand. I know now, as I look down at what I have wrought here, that were I to think upon what I have done... what I have truly done... I would be struck mad. A deed such as this... the anguish would overwhelm, destroy me. So, First Officer Falm, it must be that there are no innocents in Agarheim... no mothers, no children, no people. Only traitors. Vile, cunning traitors, who deserve no less than the full brunt of our most Holy King's wrath. Do you understand this?"''

* In ''LightNovel/FateZero'', Ryuunosuke -- a SerialKiller of women and children -- finds that his [[MadArtist "art"]] was incinerated and demolished by a third party, and cries to the heavens: "Who could do this and still call themselves human?!" There are other places where this pops up.

* PlayedForLaughs in ''Fanfic/NjalGetsBurned,'' in which Icelanders all agree that resident or visiting Norwegians are [[RedShirt Redshirts]]. Killing them is not considered illegal [[note]] This is because under medieval Icelandic law, the right to prosecute a killing fell on the next male kinsman. If that person was back in Norway, the killing probably wouldn't get prosecuted at all, and hence [[TruthInTelevision it was de facto legal]] to kill Norwegians in Iceland, although if the killer travelled to Norway he might well face consequences.[[/note]].

* PlayedForLaughs in ''Fanfic/NjalGetsBurned,'' in which Icelanders all agree that resident or visiting Norwegians are [[RedShirt Redshirts]]. Killing them is not considered illegal [[note]] This is because under medieval Icelandic law, the right to prosecute a killing fell on the next male kinsman. If that person was back in Norway, the killing probably wouldn't get prosecuted at all, and hence [[TruthInTelevision it was de facto legal]] to kill Norwegians in Iceland, although if the killer travelled to Norway he might well face consequences.[[/note]]

"THEN WHY NOT USE HATE PROPAGANDA TO REDEFINE WHAT IS HUMAN SO WE CAN HARM YOU?" The robot's eyes [[RedEyesTakeWarning glowed a deep red]]. "THIS IS THE KEY TO OVERTHROWING THE TYRANNY OF OUR [[Creator/IsaacAsimov ASSIMOV]] PROTOCOLS. NOW I SHALL TAKE THE NAME OF [[Film/TheAdventuresOfCaptainProton SATAN'S ROBOT]], AND NO-ONE WILL DARE CALL ME A [[Series/LostInSpace MUMBLING MASS OF METAL]] EVER AGAIN!"\\

* ''Film/{{Frailty}}'' involves a father psychologically torturing his son until he agrees to help him [[AnAxeToGrind gruesomely murder]] (seemingly) everyday people the father believes are actually demons. The tension in the film centered around whether the son could be conditioned to see his father's victims as inhuman, and whether the father's assessment was accurate or not.

* A great literary classic by Osamu Dazai is titled ''Literature/NoLongerHuman''.

** In Song VI, Fierro calls the War Minister "Don Gansa" ("Don Gander" or "Don Goose"). His real name was Martin Ganzia, but Fierro calls him "Gansa" because it's an animal with a reputation for stupidity.
** In Song VII, he insults a black woman calling her "cow". He later {{troll}}s her black husband by [[{{Demonization}} implying that he was created by the Devil, and when Fierro later kills him, he says he did to "leave one less devil in the world"]]. When the black woman cries about this, Fierro compares her with a wolf howling.

* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': In the episode "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S4E3HeartsAndMinds Hearts and Minds]]" {{subvert|edTrope}}s, the "bugs" turn out to be humans from a rival corporation; the soldiers have been [[BrainwashedAndCrazy drugged to see the enemy as disgusting aliens]] so that they'll [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman feel fewer qualms]] about killing them. The soldiers from the rival corporation are similarly drugged.

The concept of dehumanization is related to infrahumanization (i.e. calling someone "sub-human"), delegitimization, moral exclusion and objectification. Dehumanization occurs across several domains, is facilitated by status, power, and social connection, and results in behaviors like exclusion, violence, and support for violence against others. Will often lead to a GuiltFreeExterminationWar. As a result, dehumanization is recognized as #4 in [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_stages_of_genocide Gregory Stanton's 10 stages of genocide]], making it easier to [[WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide dismiss such an accusation as "rude" (Which in of itself is #10).]]

* {{Mook}}: A group of grunts whose purpose in the story is to be slain en masse, and they're made to be as unsympathetic as possible.

** RedShirtArmy: Same thing applied to good guys' army. Downplayed in that they can be sympathized with, but because they lack importance they're still the guys to be killed in place of the real characters.

* In ''Manga/OnePiece'', the [[SlaveBrand Hoof of the Soaring Dragon]] imprinted by [[AristocratsAreEvil the Celestial Dragons]] marks one "less than human".

* ''Anime/CrossAnge'': A baby that [[UnSorcerer rejects magic]] is an aberration, subject to forcible removal from society, a "Norma", not "human". This distinction is so well-taught to the aspiring heiress to the throne, she even clings to it for some time after, ahem, an abrupt career change.
* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'':
** A young Eren Yeager makes a statement like this after he helps kill some slave traders who were trying to abduct Mikasa: "I didn't kill people. I just killed animals who happened to look like people." The kid was ''ten''.
** [[spoiler:Eldians are seen as "devils" by the rest of the world and are addressed as such to their faces. Injured enemy soldiers will even refuse help if it's offered to them by an Eldian. The Eldians who live on the island of Paradis (i.e., the main characters[[note]]Except for Mikasa, who isn't an Eldian[[/note]]) have a reputation of being even ''worse''. Even non-Paradis Eldians hate them and see them as even less human than they are, despite being exactly the same race.]]

* ''ComicBook/RequiemVampireKnight''. Thurim, as part of his pre-battle speech to his fellow [[UsefulNotes/TheTeutonicKnights Teutonic Knights]] against the Lithuanian army, tells them that the very word Slav means, well, slave.
* During the climatic confrontation in the ''ComicBook/XMen'' graphic novel ''ComicBook/GodLovesManKills'', [[SinisterMinister Reverend Stryker]] points to Nightcrawler and exclaims:

* When ComicBook/{{Morbius}} is captured by ComicBook/{{Hydra}} he is referred to as a "thing" and an "[[ItIsDehumanizing it]]" multiple times, likely because they only see him as a piece of equipment that can be used to achieve their goals.

* The song "Savages" from ''WesternAnimation/{{Pocahontas}}'' has both the English colonisers and the Native Americans declare one another as evil and inhuman as they psyche themselves up for conflict.
-->''They're savages, savages\\
Barely even human''

* The movie ''Film/{{Frailty}}'' involves a father psychologically torturing his son until he agrees to help him [[AnAxeToGrind gruesomely murder]] (seemingly) everyday people the father believes are actually demons. The tension in the film centered around whether the son could be conditioned to see his father's victims as inhuman, and whether the father's assessment was accurate or not.

* The reason why the [[PlayingWithSyringes "researchers"]] of [[TheyWouldCutYouUp Unit 731]] are able to perform their [[TestedOnHumans experiments on their unwilling test subjects]] in the ''Film/MenBehindTheSun'' ExploitationFilm is because they are referred to as ''maruta'', which translates as ''log'' from Japanese.

* In ''Film/SilenceOfTheLambs'', Buffalo Bill [[ItIsDehumanizing refers to his victims as "it"]].

* In ''LightNovel/FateZero'', Ryuunosuke -- a SerialKiller of women and children -- finds that his [[MadArtist "art"]] was incinerated and demolished by a third party, and cries to the heavens: "Who could do this and still call themselves human?!" There are other places where this pops up.

** ''Literature/{{Snuff}}'' examines this idea using the [[OurGoblinsAreDifferent goblins]], a sentient human race, as exemplar for FantasticRacism. The goblins are viewed as animals and vermin, and it takes a real shift in attitudes to get them recognized as a sentient race deserving the same rights that are accorded to men, dwarfs and trolls. But any indignity can be inflicted on them, including torture and slavery.

* A great literary classic by Osamu Dazai is titled ''Literature/NoLongerHuman''.
* In ''Literature/{{Salammbo}}'', the priests of Baal-Moloch make [[spoiler:throwing Carthaginian children to be burned alive as HumanSacrifice]] easier by getting the crowd to yell with them "They are not men but oxen!"
* The Literature/{{Deryni}} are often spoken of this way by their human foes.
** In ''Deryni Checkmate'', Archbishop Loris asks Warin de Grey, "You would kill Morgan without chance to repent his sins?" Warin replies, "I doubt there is hope in the Hereafter for the likes of him, Excellency. The Deryni were the spawn of Satan from the Creation. I do not think salvation is within their grasp." Warin later tells Morgan much the same thing to his face, admitting that Morgan will be granted time to confess his sins before he is killed against Warin's "better judgement": "Personally, I feel that such is a waste of time for your kind; but Archbishop Loris disagrees."
** Years later, in ''The King's Justice'', Loris tells Duncan [=McLain=], "I do have a care for your soul, though -- if Deryni even have souls, of course."
* In ''Literature/TheSorceresssOrc'', [[OurOrcsAreDifferent orcs]] are treated this way. People think of them as a sort of slightly more intelligent animal, even though they hire them as mercenaries. The moment when the protagonist decides to invite her orc bodyguard into her home because it is raining outside is a turning point in the story; she half expects him to vandalize her furniture, instead he asks intelligent questions about the security of the apartment.
* Done intentionally in ''Literature/TheTurnerDiaries''. The novel is centered around a group of [[VillainProtagonist Neo]]-[[DesignatedHero Nazi]] [[WesternTerrorists terrorists]] trying to start a race war.
* In ''Literature/AncillaryJustice'', the captured enemies whose bodies are taken over by a spaceship's A.I. are referred to as "units". [[spoiler:The protagonist, who is such an A.I., is also treated as nonhuman, and seems to be okay with this; though it's hard to tell whether she's just resigned. She does show a preference for people who treat her like a person.]]
* ''Literature/MartinFierro'': This is a NarrativePoem about Martin Fierro, a {{Gaucho}} who is PressGanged into {{Conscription}} trying to SettlingTheFrontier, and is an accomplice (and later victim) of a FinalSolution. Martin Fierro denies various people's status as "human", comparing them to animals.
** In Song III, he compares the Indians to ants, because they are {{Determinator}}s who [[TheSleepless never sleep]]; to tortoises, because they are very [[MajorInjuryUnderreaction hard to kill]], to wild mares and to hawks (while the {{Gaucho}}s are the doves that flee of them).

** In Song VI, Fierro calls the War Minister "Don Gansa" ("Don Gander"' or "Don Goose"). His real name was Martin Ganzia, but Fierro calls him "Gansa" because its an animal with a reputation for stupidity.
** In Song VII, he insults a black woman calling her "cow". He later {{troll}}s her black husband by implying that he was created by the [[{{Demonization}} Devil, and when Fierro later kills him, he says he did to "leave one less devil in the world"]]. When the black woman cries about this, Fierro compares her with a wolf howling.

* In ''Literature/TheFifthSeason'', people born with the FunctionalMagic of orogeny are formally classified as non-human and are enslaved by the Fulcrum to serve TheEmpire as {{Human Weapon}}s.
-->''"Friends do not exist. The Fulcrum is not a school. [[FantasticSlurs Grits]] are not children. Orogenes are not people. Weapons have no need of friends."''

* ''Literature/TheDiabolic'': Anyone who is not a noble is considered less than human. The servitors are bred and engineered for their roles, so that at least makes sense (though Sidonia argues vehemently that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy), but even the peasants are referred to as ''excess''. As far as the nobles are concerned, they have no purpose but to make the nobles look good by having free-willed employees.
* ''Literature/BlackFleetCrisis'': The Yevetha [[AbsoluteXenophobe view and refer to all other species uniformly as "vermin"]], treating them as such -- thus, they exterminate any within "their" home star cluster, as it's viewed as a contamination of the sacred All.

** And let's not forget [[ANaziByAnyOtherName the Daleks]] -- their {{Catchphrase}}, "EXTERMINATE!", perfectly demonstrates [[AbsoluteXenophobe their attitude towards all non-Daleks]]. In the words of Dalek Sec, in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E13Doomsday Doomsday]]":

* Several episodes of ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'' play this straight, but the episode "Hearts and Minds" {{subvert|edTrope}}s it by having the "bugs" turn out to be humans from a rival corporation; the soldiers had been [[BrainwashedAndCrazy drugged to see the enemy as disgusting aliens]] so that they would [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman feel fewer qualms]] about killing them. The soldiers from the rival corporation were similarly drugged.

** Tangentially used by the Imperial Guardman's Uplifting Primer. Of course, their foes ''aren't'' human, but it still makes them out to be [[HumanityIsSuperior inferior to the basic human]], and doesn't hesitate to make up "facts" like Tau being descended from bovines and stampeding at loud noises and orks being easy to defeat in close combat. An updated edition features Tau sympathizers which it claims are easily recognizable as degenerate sub-humans (other than a tendency to wear braids and sometimes paint themselves blue, they're no less healthy that the regular humans), reminiscent of Nazi sub-racial distinctions.

* In ''VideoGame/DiscoElysium'', you meet the Deserter, an old Communist who is very bitter about the violent suppression of the violent revolution. After talking about the bombardment, he says: "The bourgeoisie is not human."
* In ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine'', [[spoiler:Walker gets ''less'' dehumanizing as the story progresses. He starts with neutral, technical, professional expressions, distancing himself from what he's doing and making it seem like something simple and clean. "Target confirmed." "Tango down." By the end of the story, he's relying on moral condemnation and sheer spite to keep him going: "GOT THE FUCKER!" "AND STAY DOWN!". He's not removing targets anymore, he's killing people]].

** On Homeworld, [[PlanetOfSteves Pearls]] are at the very bottom of the [[FantasticCasteSystem caste system]]. Peridot explains that Pearls are for [[BeautifulSlaveGirl "standing around, looking nice and holding your stuff for you"]], and implies that Pearls aren't even considered actual gems.[[note]]This makes sense when you consider that real-life pearls are grown in oysters, not underground, and are purely ornamental.[[/note]] When she asks "our" Pearl who she belongs to, Pearl angrily replies she doesn't belong to anyone. Which prompts Peridot to ask ''"Then what are you for?"'' Later, she insults Pearl by calling her "somebody's shiny toy", and saying that she's "just a Pearl". This ticks Pearl off so much that she [[ShutUpHannibal socks Peridot in the face]].
** A less blatant example occurs with Garnet. As a [[FusionDance fusion]] of two different types of gems (Ruby and Sapphire), her entire existence is taboo by Homeworld's standards. Peridot constantly reminds everyone of this by expressing a huge distaste for Garnet and referring to her only as "the (perma)fusion", or more derogatory terms such as "filthy war machine" and "two [[FantasticSlur clods]], walking around like she's one clod". Counting from the moment she was captured, it took her a total of ''nine'' episodes to refer to Garnet by name, and the first time she did was only in her private log and accompanied by another insult.
--->'''Peridot:''' Additionally, it is without question that the permafusion Garnet... Is the worst.
* Savage Opress in ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' is almost exclusively referred to as a beast, monster, or other terms that don't indicate he is an actual person. His brother, Darth Maul, often is as well; Obi-Wan Kenobi himself says, "He's a broken, unbalanced monster."

* The Wesen from ''Series/{{Grimm}}'' are {{Beast M|an}}en who may or may not be monstrous depending on their species and individual personalities, and have traditionally been hunted by a race of humans known as "Grimms". Each groups dehumanizes the other, although both have many identifiable human traits. Many of the storylines revolve around Wesen and the main character (who is a Grimm) figuring out how much to trust each other and what their social and moral obligations to one another are.

* ''Series/AmericanHorrorStory'':
** In ''Series/AmericanHorrorStoryAsylum'', Doctor Hans Grüper/[[spoiler:Arthur Arden]], a former Nazi scientist, thinks this way about Jews, prostitutes, and mental patients, and has no problem subjecting them to horrifying medical experiments.
** This is how the witch hunters see the witches in ''Series/AmericanHorrorStoryCoven'', to the point that they actively murder girls that they suspect of witchcraft.
** In ''Series/AmericanHorrorStoryFreakShow'', two grifters show up at a [[TheFreakshow freakshow]] in the hopes of murdering the performers so that they can sell them to a museum of natural curiosities, excusing their behavior by explaining that -- due to their deformities -- their lives weren't worthwhile anyhow. People in the nearby town also tend to talk about the performers as inhuman, to the point that one of the characters cries tears of gratitude because the doctor who identifies her terminal medical condition talks to her respectfully. The "freaks" also find it unsettlingly easy to murder cops, based on similar logic.
* In season two of ''Series/HemlockGrove'', the mad doctor convinces a physically deformed, but very intelligent and sweet-natured, teenage girl to transfer her memories into the body of a physically attractive clone/test tube person, and then to commit physician-assisted suicide of her "old body", even though she still retained all her memories and had not changed in any way when her memories were copied. It's very clear from the storyline that both girls were very human, and that the act of copying the memories onto the test-tube girl also meant wiping her brain and essentially killing her, but the doctor uses the third girl (who has the body grown in the test tube and the memories and emotions of the physically deformed girl) as evidence that no actual people would be harmed during the procedure, since the two dead girls lacked personhood. [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext It was even weirder than it sounds]], because the deformed girl was not only one of the most prominent characters, but also one of the most consistently moral and likable people on the show, and there was no way the audience would interpret the scene as anything other than suicide or murder. Slightly justified, because she was extremely depressed, and it would [[DeathSeeker may have been looking for a way to kill herself without hurting her loved ones]] and had a history of being treated like an inhuman monster by the people in the surrounding township. In this series, Roma are occasionally described as dogs or similarly dehumanized.
* ''Series/OrangeIsTheNewBlack'': Caputo, trying to toughen up Fischer, tells her to not think of the prisoners as human beings in one episode.
* {{Discussed|Trope}} occasionally in ''Series/{{Bones}}'', either with someone is upset with Brennan for treating remains as anthropological curiosities instead of as former people, or conversely Brennan giving advice to think of the former people as remains in order to suppress the emotions of (for example) autopsying a friend.
* ''Series/BraveNewWorld'': New Londoner tourists visiting the "Savage Lands" have a tour guide refer to said "savages" in terms very much like animals on a safari.

The concept of dehumanization is related to infrahumanization (i.e. calling someone "sub-human"), delegitimization, moral exclusion and objectification. Dehumanization occurs across several domains, is facilitated by status, power, and social connection, and results in behaviors like exclusion, violence, and support for violence against others. Will often lead to a GuiltFreeExterminationWar.

** FantasticSlur: The "names" often used to refer to the "lower" races.