Don't You Dare Pity Me! in Western Animation.
- American Dad!:
- Stan Smith is telling Steve about his first love:Stan: Well, over time you find that the pain fades awa-AUGH!! AMY!! WHY??!!! WHY DIDN'T YOU LOVE ME??!!!
Steve: Aw, it's okay, dad-
Stan: DON'T PATRONIZE ME!! WHY?? *continues bawling* - In another episode, Klaus does this when Hayley accidentally dissuades Stan from putting Klaus in a human body, which then leads to his bowl capsizing, causing Hayley to try and help Klaus again:Klaus: You know what? Don't. You've done enough. [to self] Don't let her see you're suffocating. Don't give her the satisfaction.
- Stan Smith is telling Steve about his first love:
- Avatar: The Last Airbender:
- Toph Beifong hates it when people think she's disadvantaged because of her blindness due to her overprotective upbringing. She gets a bit better at distinguishing between pity and friendly help after talking with Iroh in "The Chase" though.
- CatDog: In "The Unnatural", everybody makes fun of Cat cause he's really bad at baseball. After a while, Cat starts to cry, and when Dog tries to comfort him, he orders Dog to "just turn away".
- Inverted in DuckTales (2017)'s Season 1 finale, when Magica rants about pitying Scrooge when she realizes that his Heroic BSoD is real, yelling "How dare you make me pity you?!"
- Joe Swanson from Family Guy. For example, when he falls down in one episode as a result of Peter stealing the wheelchair ramp in front of the Swansons' house, he turns down an offer for help, saying that he "needs to retain his independence". Somewhat justified in that he still is quite capable of getting around despite being handicapped.
- One of the stories in Three Kings had Joe's character go on to invent a wheelchair-based rugby game called "Don't-Feel-Sorry-For-Us-Ball".
- In the Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes episode "Doomed", Dr. Doom displays this in his usual Large Ham fashion:Reed: In a way, I pity him.
Dr. Doom: No one pities Doom! I will have your head for this, Richards! - In an episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy has Pud'n talk about his not-really-a-pirate relative. While the teacher was perplexed, Pud'n hugs the boot he brought and says that he didn't want sympathy.
- The titular protagonist of Pelswick hates it when other people express pity for him for being in a wheelchair, both because he's completely self-sufficient and not nearly as much of a burden as people make him feel like, and because their pity usually tends to make situations worse for him, such as school officials forbidding him from going on a camping trip for "safety reasons". This was very much a case of Write What You Know; creator John Callahan was rendered quadriplegic in a car accident and quickly developed a distaste towards what he saw as abled society's patronizing attitude towards disabled people, with the same theming appearing in his more adult-oriented series, Quads!, which features an entire disabled main cast.
- Somewhat ironically, one episode of Pelswick has his bully Boyd temporarily confined to a wheelchair after an accident. Pelswick feels sorry for him and attempts to talk with him about it, only Boyd to give this response.
- In one episode of Rocket Power, Reggie meets a handicapped snowboarder and lets her win a race by wiping out on purpose. Afterwards, they call Reggie out for this and declares that she just wants to be treated like everybody else.
- Rugrats: All the men of the Pickles family apply to this.
- Grandpa Lou hates hearing that he is not competent to watch the babies. A prominent example is the first movie when Didi points out that he slept through Pearl Harbor.
- Drew is not fond of Stu calling him out on his parenting and career lifestyle.
- Stu is probably the biggest example. He absolutely hates when people call his inventions anything bad or being called a bad parent. Early in Rugrats Go Wild!, even though he feels guilty about stranding the family and friends with his crappy boat, he just uses his intentions of "family time" as an excuse for not getting an ocean liner.
- The Secret Saturdays: In Season 2, when Zak discovers the truth about Francis and his father and what their agency expects of Francis, Zak is clearly sympathetic, and when he starts to say something, Francis goes from visibly somber to hissing momentarily that he doesn't want pity, an obvious defense mechanism.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars: In the episode "The Lawless", Obi-Wan tries to talk down Darth Maul by showing him compassion and acknowledging that Maul didn't choose to be evil, but was forced into it due a lifetime of being abused and used as a pawn by others. Tragically, this has the opposite effect, as it only makes Maul even angrier and causes him to murder Duchess Satine just to make a point.
- On Ultimate Spider-Man (2012), Peter chases off Flash from bullying his newest victim, then tries to introduce himself. Any gratitude he might have received is ruined by that since the two already knew each other and Peter just couldn't remember him.Peter: Oh! Oh, Alex! Right! Duh! My bad.
Alex: Forget it. Forget me. Unless somebody wants my homework or to save me, I'm invisible to all you popular kids.
