History Main / ScareEmStraight

** In many driver's ed classes, students are required to watch videos filled with the sobbing, regretful testimonies of people who caused deadly vehicular accidents by texting, drinking, or making other common driving mistakes.

If you've spent any time in a Western (and probably [[CreatorProvincialism American]]) public school system, then you've no doubt seen one of the films, cartoons and filmstrips whose purpose is to inform bright-eyed schoolchildren about themselves and the world around them. Judging by the way many of these films turn out, however, one might suspect that there's a special wing in {{Hell}} set aside just to produce them.

This mentality has formed the basis of all sorts of cautionary tales, many of which employ [[NightmareFuel extreme and terrifying imagery]] in their attempt to keep children on the straight and narrow path. Yes, yes, [[ParanoiaFuel irreversible psychological damage might occur]], but it ''is'' all for their own good, so it's okay. So what if a kid winds up a twitching vegetable afraid of venturing into the outside world? At least he won't [[TooSmartForStrangers get kidnapped by a lollipop-wielding child-molester]] or hit by a bus while jaywalking and smoking crack.

Note: Sometimes Scare 'Em Straight campaigns will actually ''backfire'', and [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing the ads that were designed to admonish a certain behavior will actually encourage it and make it look cool]]. There are those who believe [[http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2006/12/11/daily8.html?from_rss=1 that certain companies might be doing this sort of thing on purpose to lure in new customers.]] After all, why else would [[StealthCigaretteCommercial cigarette]] and alcohol companies be so quick and eager to create ad campaigns that are supposedly ''against'' middle-schoolers using their products, when most new users tend to get hooked at that age? It's a debate that will probably rage on for as long as alcohol and tobacco remain available.

* Motoko Kusanagi from ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'' does this to a group of med students. Three medical students who are well enough on their own decide to try their hand at [[OrganTheft stealing organs]] and selling them on the black market. It doesn't take much to capture the first two, but the leader of the operation runs off into the nearby warehouse. Motoko heads inside to deal with him personally. She pulls out a knife and threatens to kill him and sell his organs herself. He tries to plead and bargain with her, but she keeps advancing. She backs him into a corner, takes the knife and stabs it down at his head. One GoryDiscretionShot later, we see the kid is still alive, though he did wet his pants in fear. Motoko jammed the knife into an oil pipe right above his head. As all three students are being taken away by the police, she tells them that they all have promising educations and futures ahead of them and that they shouldn't get mixed up with illegal activities, especially ones that the Yakuza has a hand in.

* In one chapter of ''[[Manga/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaVivid Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid Life]]'', Carim pretends to use her prophecy powers to read [[NunTooHoly Chantez']] future, claiming that she'll die if she doesn't start acting like a proper nun (and her predictions are famous for always being accurate). The next day, Chantez is suddenly much more well behaved.

--> '''Dredd:''' "Give me the juve at five and I'll give you the model citizen... or one who thinks long and hard before he steps over the line."
** Spikes Harvey Rotten got chosen to do speeches like this for the child cadets at the Academy of Law, but tried to use it as an opportunity to escape, only to run afoul of Dredd again. He ended up recruited as one of the crew members for the journey across The Cursed Earth to Mega-City 2.

* A charming children picture book "Why Monsters brush their teeth" might be called an in-universe example. A little girl who finds teeth brushing annoying runs into a big monster in the bath room. But it's harmless, and he and his colleagues are ''very'' scared of the little caries monsters ([[JustifiedTrope no wonder]] if most of them fall under MoreTeethThanTheOsmondFamily).

* A French Auror in ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12302907/11/Si-Vis-Pacem-Para-Bellum Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum]]'' scares her sister off from entering the Triwizard Tournament by telling her how dangerous Hogwarts is, using Harry, Ron, and Hermione as examples. Each of the three have notable facial scars and Ron admits to missing the days when his nose was straight. Afterwards, Sophie admits she knows full well their scars are all from learning to fight for the past two months, but thought they'd serve as good visual examples.
* ''FanFic/ThisBites'': In the face of [[spoiler: Sakazuki's lava powers]] and certain death, the Marine T-Bone renounced the betrayal of his flotilla, condemned them all as evil, and swore to be a steadfast, uncrooked pursuer of justice and duty of the World Government. But his men's death and his change in morality slowly ached at him until, in the face of Cross's steadfastness to his ideals, he could not refute his actions any longer.

* In ''[[https://www.fimfiction.net/story/59153/everfree-and-the-poisoned-flower Everfree and the Poisoned Flower]],'' Fluttershy tells the Cutie Mark Crusaders a scary story to keep them from going into the Everfree Forest that seems to be based on the Latin American legend of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Llorona La Llorona]]. It's about a filly named Oleander and her little sister, Everfree, who lived by the forest. One day, a trickster named Coyote gave Oleander a map that he said would help her get her cutie mark, but said she had to leave Everfree with him. Oleander followed the map and discovered her namesake flower, but when she got back home, she still hadn't gotten her cutie mark. And while she was gone, Everfree had disappeared. Their mother refused to let Oleander come home until she found her sister. Now she roams the Forest eternally, searching and calling for Everfree.

* In a Halloween chapter of ''Fanfic/AGameOfCatAndCat'', a group of [[VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV apprentice Mikado Samurai]] discuss how the local ghost story comes across as a morality tale, since the ghost seemed to be punishing Samurai for neglecting their duties [[note]]Specifically, drinking, eating, or having sex on duty, not getting enough sleep, [[IneffectualLoner trying to fight the ghost alone]], or separating from their partner to pee[[/note]]. [[spoiler:The second half of the story suggests that the ghost was simply trying to kill as many Samurai as possible, and only took advantage of distraction.]]

-->They never come back... as BOYS! ''(cue SlasherSmile)''

* ''Film/ReeferMadness'' is a 1936 [[BMovie exploitation film]] revolving around the tragic events that follow when high school students are lured by pushers to try "marihuana": a hit and run accident, [[IDidntMeanToKillHim manslaughter]], [[DrivenToSuicide suicide]], [[SexualHarassmentAndRapeTropes rape]], and [[FreakOut descent into madness]] all ensue. This one was so incredibly over-the-top, it was actually adopted by the pro-marijuana community as an indictment of the hysteria that surrounds marijuana (as well as, perhaps ironically, a really fun movie to watch while stoned). This way of looking at the film turned it into a cult classic, and even led to a ''musical version'', which plays the whole thing off with a wink, a nudge, and a whole lot of catchy songs.

** By the 1970s, there were the {{Public Service Announcement}}s with crash test dummy footage of the consequences of drivers and passengers not wearing their seatbelts in auto accidents. While they avoided the gruesomeness of the above instructional films, the slow motion imagery of the dummies flying about and smashing into things made its point.

** But with computer-aided special effects, driver's education movies and PublicServiceAnnouncement films pitching driver safety have often gone back to being stunningly graphic. An example that comes to mind is ''Film/OnlyStwpdCowzTxtNDrive'', a British [=PSA=] that warns of the dangers of texting while driving. [[note]]''Only Stwpd Cows ... " was based on [[RippedFromTheHeadlines a real-life story]] where a teen-aged driver who was trying to send a text message caused a three-vehicle accident on a rural South Wales highway; four people died in that crash and the driver was sentenced to prison.[[/note]] The centerpiece of that film was a four-minute scene depicting the crash (which lasts 30 seconds, and shows three teen-aged girls suffering violent whiplash as they are thrown about the car) and the bloody aftermath. Later in the film, one of the deceased victims is shown in the morgue as her parents are asked to [[IdentifyingTheBody confirm the identity of her body]].

* ''Film/ThePedestrian1973'' has an InUniverse example of the drivers' ed video. The protagonist, who's had his license suspended after an accident in which his son was killed, has to attend a traffic class and watch the typical gory drivers' ed video, with shattered bodies strewn all over the highway. This is ironic as the film eventually reveals that the reason the man had the accident was that his son grabbed the wheel and yanked them into the back of a truck on purpose.
* ''[[http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=123895 Starting with Safety]]'', a chemistry lab safety video that aims to impart a thorough understanding of the importance of laboratory rules. It was made in 1991, but is still a popular choice for beginner labs for preteen students all the way through college labs. Highlights include the "glassware to the palm," the "camera bath," rampant mannequin abuse, and a demonstration of the safety shower complete with [[AllMenArePerverts uncomfortably attentive classmate]]. It combines late 80's-brand cheesiness with laughably cheap special effects and somehow manages some genuinely wince-inducing moments.

* ''Film/HaroldAndKumarGoToWhiteCastle'' has an early scene where the two are watching TV and a (fake) PSA shows a guy getting high and claiming he's invulnerable, [[AteHisGun putting a shotgun to his mouth]]. That was actually a parody of several drug PSA's that were out at the time where people who were high were too unaware of what they were doing. The PSA it's parodying in particular has a high kid playing around with a gun and shooting himself. It's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7TDSqCjj7w this one]]. [[SarcasmMode To be]] [[DisproportionateRetribution fair]], the friend did [[MySisterIsOffLimits make a pass at the other's sister first]].

* In ''Film/LittleShopOfHorrors'', this is parodied when the sadistic dentist shows Seymour a picture of what a neglected set of teeth look like. It's a parody, because it's clearly a close-up of a ''horse's'' teeth.

** While the films aren't used, a nauseating slide show about VD in horrifyingly graphic detail is still a common part of regular US military training. It still does the job of serving as a warning against soliciting prostitutes. And yes, syphillis and gonorrhea are among the "classics" amongst the slides. They also like to show these right after everyone's eaten.

* Creator/HilaireBelloc wrote a series which is the English equivalent of ''Struwwelpeter''. It includes ''Cautionary Tales'', ''A Moral Alphabet'', and ''A Good Child's Book Of Beasts''. Things like getting blown up, crushed by falling statuary, and eaten by lions happened to bad children. However, the stories are all in verse and have a kind of ghoulish glee about them, suggesting that they're not necessarily supposed to be taken totally seriously.

* German author Gudrun Pausewang does this so well, it makes her the queen of Nightmare Fuel. Most (in)famous example: ''Die letzten Kinder von Schewenborn'' (The last kids of Schewenborn), about the life of an ordinary German family during and after global thermonuclear war. Including excessive descriptions of radiation sickness, mutilated people, lots of children dying (incl. all the siblings of the narrator), a baby born eyeless and armless, the mother of the family going mad and forcing the family to return to Frankfurt, which she believes wasn't destroyed (of course it was, being one of Germany's most important cities), and also the description of the helplessness of the people. She also wrote books about a nuclear power plant going Chernobyl in Germany, the poorness of people in third-world country, another right-wing populist taking power in Germany, and a biography of young UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler. Some of these books even got prizes for being (supposedly) good literature.

* Jean Valjean attempts this in-universe in ''Literature/LesMiserables''. When a young fop of a street thug, Montparnasse, tries to mug him, Valjean asks why, and Montparnasse retorts that he's lazy and honest work is hard. Valjean, who spent nineteen years in prison for the FelonyMisdemeanor of stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family (and a few escape attempts), is disgusted, and gives him a vivid description of how Montparnasse's criminal laziness could very well land him in prison, where the work is so backbreakingly awful that honest employment looks like a restful paradise in comparison. When this doesn't work on its own, Valjean points to Montparnasse's fine clothes and fancy hair and says [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking he'd be shaved bald and issued a hideous uniform]]. [[SkewedPriorities This part seems to have some effect.]]

* ''Series/MyTwoDads'': The 1989 episode "Story With a Twist" sees teenager Nicole come home drunk. When her two fathers, Michael and Joey, learn she also drove with someone who was drunk, they decide to teach her a "scared straight" lesson... by themselves getting very drunk and then announcing they were going for a little drive. Judge Wilbur stops Michael and Joey just in time, before a petrified Nicole says she understands the consequences of drinking and driving; Wilbur then confides that she was in on the lesson all along.

* Parodied in ''Series/TheColbertReport''. To complement The Wørd "Just Don't Do It," Colbert did TheTalk in a way it would disencourage sex:

* Pretty much the point of J. Walter Weatherman on ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment'', who was a one-armed man that George Bluth hired to help teach his children a lesson. Several lessons. Through graphic traumatizing deceit, fake blood, and a fake arm, he managed to burn into the kids' minds that everything from talking too loud in the car, to leaving the house without putting a note on the fridge will inevitably end in someone's arm being ripped off.

** George Sr. also hosted a "Scared Straight" presentation at the Church and State Fair. Accidentally walking into the Church one, he ended up telling a bunch of young gay men about a place where you work out and have sex with other men without anyone treating it like a big deal, and was asked if there was a cover charge. Funnily enough, his ''original'' plan of talking about the horrors of his house confinement and constant sex with Lucille, along with visual aids, might have been more effective here (though a SpaceWhaleAesop).
* On ''Series/StrongMedicine'', Andy is rocked when boyfriend Milo is killed by a drunk driver at an accident. The teen comes to Andy to ask for forgiveness with her naturally cold to him. He does get to talking to Jesse. At the prom, Jesse and the guy appear to be massively drunk and are kicked out. A loud crash is heard and the students race out to see the duo inside a crashed car, blood all over them and Andy sobbing. It turns out the whole thing was staged as the trio (especially the young man) want to show these kids the consequences of driving drunk and thinking it's no big deal.

* One episode of ''Series/PoliceCameraAction'' had a group of self-confessed speeding drivers who were taken to a mock-up of an accident scene where a motorist was doing at least 60 miles in a 30-mile zone. The car he hit was of a married couple and their three-month old daughter who was reported as not breathing when the ambulance arrived. The daughter survived -- they brought her out in a wheelchair and the mother explained that she needed round-the-clock care (two carers during the day, one during the night) and that if they removed a device around her neck, she would die. A few of the group were horrified and promised never to speed again; one stated that they would only speed "if it was safe to do so."
* On ''Series/PartyDown'', after catching Henry and Constance smoking marijuana, Ron produces a photo he uses whenever he's tempted to use to scare them straight. He had a friend who smoked pot, and one time he got drunk and crashed the company van and got his foot amputated. The photo is of "a leg made footless by pot."

* Parodied in ''Series/{{The Office|US}}'' episode "The Convict". Michael attempts to seriously warn the office of how horrible and frightening prison is by using this technique as he pretends to be a rebellious ex-convict, with ridiculous reasons of why to avoid prison... like the [[Franchise/HarryPotter Dementors]].
--> '''Prison Mike:''' "Been a lot of fun talk about prison today, but I am here to scare you straight. I AM HERE TO SCARE YOU STRAAAAIIIGHT!!"

* Played with in an episode of ''Series/HillStreetBlues''. The Captain (a sort of costumed public relations guy for the precinct) tries bringing in a young juvenile offender to show him around and try to put a scare into him about crime. It not only doesn't work, when Mick lays into The Captain with a tirade that includes "people don't scare him, he scares people", the kid in turns lays into the officer with a death threat. The Captain ''still'' thinks he's getting somewhere.

** ''Film/TheDaysOfOurYears'', another short by the same group who did ''Film/LastClearChance'', that shows that no matter what happens, you will get hurt or die. No exceptions.

* Classic ''Series/DoctorWho'' in the 60s and 70s indulges in this from time to time, because the show was originally conceived as {{Edutainment}}, because NightmareFuel Public Service Broadcasts aimed at children were omnipresent in the UK in the Seventies, and because the reason ''Doctor Who'' exists is to scare the Krotons out of children. A few examples:

* An episode of ''Series/WalkerTexasRanger'' has Walker helping a former gang member (Wrestling/HulkHogan) who's turned his life around to run a youth center. Members of rival gangs converge with the young kids and it looks like a fight is about to break out. Walker arrives with some ex-cons who quickly educate the kids to how gang life leads to prison or the grave. One even shows off the scar from an eye he lost in a fight in jail.

* ''Theatre/{{Hairspray}}'' [[ParodiedTrope parodies]] [[TheSixties 1960's]] drunk driving {{Public Service Announcement}}s with the [[LyricalDissonance perky, up-tempo]] curtain closer ''"Blood On The Pavement''."

* In ''VideoGame/DigimonStoryCyberSleuthHackersMemory'', your [[PlayfulHacker white-hat hacker group]] learns of a bullied teen who's plotting to [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds murder his entire class]] by hacking the BrainUploading {{cyberspace}} everyone uses to take control of their real bodies and [[DarkerAndEdgier make them jump off the roof of the school after murdering their teacher]]. Your team resolves this by letting them all ''think'' he succeeded, then when the guilt and DespairEventHorizon sets in for everyone they reveal that they faked the whole thing to teach them all a lession.

** The dumb duo also take in a 50's drivers-ed video, starring two meatheads with a suspicious resemblance to our protagonists. They then proceed to replicate the accident during their own driving test.

** In "A Date with the Booty Warrior", Huey and Riley are sent to a "Scare 'em Straight" type of program, where they go to a prison and see how bad it is. But the whole thing goes ''very'' awry, when they and the rest of their group are taken hostage during a PrisonRiot. However, in the ending, [[{{Delinquents}} Riley]] claims to be completely unscared and unimpressed by his experience.

* The massive, multi-series crossover special ''WesternAnimation/CartoonAllStarsToTheRescue'' featured just about every major Saturday morning cartoon character of the early '90's inflicting massive amounts of psychological torture on a teenage addict to try and scare him off of marijuana and beer (mostly marijuana, since his dad was the only one who noticed the missing beer). Made even better when you consider that the real purpose of this special wasn't revealed until it aired! Instead, all the ads displayed it as a fun adventure starring all the big cartoon stars of the day. Cue deer-in-headlights look on parents' faces when their seven-year old-son turned to them and asked what marijuana was. Keep in mind that this aired in 1990, when marijuana was still illegal. Good luck showing it to today's stoners. An article about the special on the now defunct X-Entertainment website even argues that if anything, this attempt [[SpaceWhaleAesop could backfire spectacularly]]. Because if kids are shown that they'll get to meet their cartoon heroes if they try to take drugs, guess what's going to happen next.

--->"If ghosts could be put to a useful purpose, every bad stretch of road in the United States would greet the oncoming motorist with groans and screams and the educational spectacle of ten or a dozen corpses, all sizes, sexes and ages, lying horribly still on the bloody grass."

** One campaign against drunk driving that's been going on in American schools since at least UsefulNotes/The90s does this by randomly choosing a few members of the student body and having them "killed" by a drunk driver. On the milder end, someone dressed as TheGrimReaper taps you on the shoulder and you're not allowed to interact with anyone for the rest of the day (including teachers). On the scarier end, you don't go to class that day -- instead, they straight up pretend you were killed by a drunk driver and watch your friends' distraught reactions. In a couple of cases they even held an impromptu vigil and got the "victims"' ''parents'' to speak before revealing that it was a hoax. British schools use a variant of this to teach kids to be TooSmartForStrangers, turning the kids into kidnapping victims.
** Some schools have staged a drunk driving "accident" at the school entrance, complete with smashed up cars, bloody victims, and emergency responders.

** In many driver's ed classes, students are required to watch videos filled with the sobbing, regretful testimonies of people who caused deadly vehicular accidents by texting, drinking or making other common driving mistakes.

* "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave_(experiment) The Third Wave]]" was an attempt to impress upon students how easy it is to fall in line with authoritarianism. It was organized by a high school teacher who had a student ask why so many Germans sided with the Nazis during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. He chose to demonstrate the point by organizing what amounted to a secret academic club -- one that spread like wildfire throughout the school as the students got a thrill out of being members. Once that happened, he instilled utmost loyalty and discipline on the students, leading to them gleefully doing extra work to impress the leader and turning in fellow members who did not. When he eventually revealed it was all a hoax, many of the students were quite rattled; several went on record years later to say it was a valuable experience for them.

** One way to do this by showing the results of a sexually transmitted disease -- including pictures of affected genitals. And only ''some'' of them are trying to drive home that SexIsEvil. Of course, since many MoralGuardians are not comfortable with actually showing TheBodyPartsThatMustNotBeNamed, they might focus more on the social consequences of an STD and how it will ruin your health -- ''and'' your relationship.

** The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U219eUIZ7Qo "Grim Reaper" ad]] was a famous 1987 ad in Australia credited with successfully informing the public -- through the use of terrifying imagery -- not only the dangers of the AIDS virus, but also that its transmission was not limited to gay men. In some quarters, though, it backfired, as people thought that the gays ''were'' the Grim Reaper coming for everyone, rather than that the Grim Reaper had been ''targeting'' gay men.

* Drunk driving can lead to catastrophic accidents for the driver, their passengers and anybody they hit. Hence the decades of [=PSAs=] reminding people not to drink and drive. Many of these ads are aimed at adults as much as they are at children, and can run late in the evening. One thing that might make them more effective than other [=PSAs=] is that they don't necessarily discourage people from drinking socially, but just plan for becoming too tanked to get behind the wheel.