Double Standard Abuse Female On Male: Western Animation
In American Dad Francine frequently vents unstable violent tendencies on Stan, she once beat him mercilessly for forgetting their wedding anniversary, and once threatened to shoot him kneecaps off for another deception (which he only avoided by having her gun down his double by mistake). On both occasions they kiss and make up by the end. Granted however Stan is a Jerk Ass whose belittling treatment of Francine is also usually Played for Laughs (albeit in a verbal manner, the one time Stan was falsely implied to have beaten Francine, and at a much less brutal scale than the genuine occasions vise versa has happened, he was labelled a monster and jailed). There is also more than one episode where the couple have all-out bloody fights with both sides giving and getting, and at least one where he's implied to have been torturing her off camera. He also accidentally threw a javelin at her, although he was trying to hit a bear (It Makes Sense in Context). Luckily, she's still fine... then she's shot by Cleveland.
An episode of Batman The Brave And The Bold, Triumvirate of Terror!, shows this. Lex Luthor, Cheetah and Joker decide to switch arch enemies. Joker takes on Wonder Woman and subdues her using trickery and had earlier knocked out a heap of Amazons using laughing gas. Cheetah meanwhile takes on Superman and gives him a brutal beating (subverting Standard Female Grab Area in process). Joker is never seen hitting Wonder Woman and is stopped before he can, compared to Superman who is badly beaten and gets his costume torn in places. Wonder Woman is also the only one of the three heroes who is shown hitting Cheetah on screen.
Subverted in Night of the Huntress! where Batman punches Mrs. Manface, saying, "The hammers of Justice are unisex!"
Leading to the Family Unfriendly Aesop: "It's okay for men to beat up ugly/manly women terrorizing the city on a crime spree with a Giant Mecha, just not attractive ones."
Janet Barch from Daria is the pure, unadulterated, research-grade form of this trope. The show portrays her as being violently unhinged in early episodes, which is where most of the actual abuse is confined to. Later episodes portray her as something of a Defrosting Ice Queen as she begins a relationship with Mr. O'Neill, which is portrayed as being weird but not necessarily dysfunctional. ("The F Word" does seem to imply some consensual "abuse" in their sex life, though.)
In Ed Edd N Eddy, the Eds are commonly beaten up by Ed's sister Sarah, plus all the times they've been possibly raped by the Kankers, who are the walking definitions of Do Not Want. Not only are the Kankers beasts, but the cul-de-sac is scared of them. So while their treatment of the Eds and anyone who annoys them is usually played for laughs, there are times that it is wrong and quite likely illegal, but those moments are never actually on screen and only inferred or alluded to. It's to the point that when they drag Eddy's brother away for 'mouth to mouth', it's viewed as his comeuppance. Granted, he a complete jerk who abuses Eddy, but still...
In The Fairly OddParents, this is somewhat subverted with Vicky's abuse of Timmy. While she's quite obviously a villain and many times her treatment of Timmy is Played for Laughs, it would probably not be as well received if it were a boy doing this to a girl. In addition, Vicki has stripped Timmy down to his underwear and many times she has forced him to wear a dress. She is the main reason that Timmy has fairy godparents, and he always wins in the end.
In the Futurama episode "The Butterjunk Effect," Amy and Leela become Butterfly Derby athletes by doping up on "Nectar", which is space steroids. Fry and Kif are the victims of their subsequent 'roid rage: Kif mentions being hit with "various chairs", and Fry gets sexually assaulted by both of them while in the throes of their Nectar-induced madness. All play for laughs, (Fry's kind of okay with it, actually), but if the sexes were reversed this whole situation wouldn't be funny at all.
Averted in The Cleveland Show. Although it's Played for Laughs, the characters never act like it's okay that their friend is being beaten by his girlfriend or mock him about it, and the main plot of the episode is about trying to get her away from him.
Family Guy did a similar episode, satirizing this.
If it's a Seth MacFarlane show, its going to have this. Family Guy is also never above using violence from either sex against the other as comedic fodder, finding dark humor in it.
Shock value aside however, Lois and Meg are often portrayed far more sympathetically than the male cast, despite often being equally abusive and unhinged as they are, and tend to get dished Aesops about their callous treatment a lot less often. Though, Meg tends to be more justified, as she is subjected to so much crap from her family that her abuses are often portrayed as her snapping, rather than some inherent right as a female.
Zig-Zagged in Hey Arnold!. Helga regularly harasses characters in the series, especially Arnold and Brainy (who has a tendency to appear behind her and get punched after he breathes down her neck). Averted when a psychiatrist does visit PS 118, spots her behaviour, and immediately wishes to assess it. By the end of the episode, when Helga asks if she can still punch Brainy, she's told, "No, that's the reason why you're here". Granted, it's not a punishment, but she did get repercussions for her bully tendencies. Plus her harassment is showing the audience that she has a problem, and played for drama more than it is for laughs.
Also, in one episode Arnold is fed up with Helga verbally abusing him in art class, and after she throws glue and feathers on him (and then laughs at him, shouting to the whole class "Arnold's a bird!"), he retaliates by throwing a cup of paint on her. The teacher, who never did anything when Helga abused him, is shocked at Arnold and sends him to the principal's office, and his grandparents are notified. Helga gets away with this (not that she enjoys it however).
Home Movies: Brendon is trying to stop an older kid from beating him up, and gets him to turn placid and mellowed out. Melissa, who was harboring a crush on the guy, angrily beats up Brendon for changing him.
The way Gaz treats her older brother, Dib, on Invader Zim. Early episodes just portrayed her as threatening him but never doing much, but by the second season she had been Flanderized into beating him savagely for minor deeds, and Fan Fiction took that even farther and made her into a God ModeJerk Sue. Though Dib is only a year older than her and Gaz is clearly stronger than any normal child her age could be, the idea of her beating him in ways as bad or worse than an adult could are rarely played for anything but laughs. There is a small but vocal Hatedom of Gaz for this very reason, which often produce a genre of Fix Fics where Gaz suffers in some way for her actions. It also doesn't help that between their lack of a mom, their dad being at the lab all the time and usually only communicating with his kids through a screen, and the authority figures at their school being worthless, there really isn't anyone who seems willing to correct her behavior.
Averted in the King of the Hill episode "Leanne's Saga". When Luanne's mother, Leanne, is released from jail, she stays with the Hills. She starts dating Bill. Things aren't too bad at first, even though she does show some gold digger tendencies, with her getting him to spend all his money for her, but after she succumbs to her alcoholism again, she starts to abuse Bill both physically and verbally. Even if the audience may be amused, the characters in the show are appalled by her behavior and treatment towards Bill. Leanne was also originally in jail for stabbing Luanne's father with a fork, and that he subsequently moved to an oil rig, refusing to come back to the mainland until Hank faxes him Leanne's death certificate. (This was later Retconned to him being in jail too, but still applies to the episode in question.)
Muppet Babies: Piggy does this to Gonzo in almost every episode. When Gonzo sweet talks Piggy into liking him, she gets very mad and beats him up in the most hilarious ways imaginable.
Oddly played for laughs in Phineas and Ferb when a supervillain is hit by a chair thrown by his wife, who then demands they go shopping for more "throwing chairs."
The Proud Family: Oscar is beaten up, sometimes twice an episode, and usually by his wife or mother. Most of the times it's because he flirts with other women, which is wrong, but if Trudy ever flirts with another man and Oscar says something about it,he is portrayed as over-reacting. One particularly Egregious example: Trudy makes a joke about leaving Oscar for Denzel Washington. Everyone laughs. Oscar makes a joke about leaving her for Halle Berry. Trudy and Penny glare at him before Trudy drops his foot, which was bandaged after an earlier accident.
In the Ren and Stimpy episode "Ren's Bitter Half" near the end Ren's evil side decides to replicate himself so that the world will be full of Evil Rens, the first clone turns out to be female and they fall in love, near the end after they get married they playfully get into a fight, you will notice that none of his punches are able to strike her and she is able to beat him up all she wants.
Played with in The Simpsons. This is apparently so common, Springfield has a Men's Shelter. Bart and Lisa are a subversion, as the two of them have beaten up on each other repeatedly, and take as much as they dish out.
On the other hand Bart's physical abuse of Lisa is usually more petty and harmless, akin to playful bullying. When the two truly get physical, Lisa usually overpowers him easily.
Word Of God states that at one point writers suggested making a gag where Homer strangles Lisa, which was immediately rebuked, despite no one ever criticizing the often used gag of him strangling Bart.
An early episode of South Park revolves around Stan being beaten and everyone being sympathetic toward him over it...until they find out that the one beating him up is his sister. Then they mock him and call him a pussy. This is despite the fact that Stan's sister is older and bigger than he is, and is also a violent sociopath.
Averted though when they find out Ike is sleeping with his teacher. The obvious message of the episode is that it's statutory rape and still terrible. The adults in South Park are oblivious, and seem ok with it, subscribing Double Standard: Rape—Female on Male. A policeman even said it wasn't a crime because "she's hot".
Played with the McKormicks. While they are implied to both take as much as they dish out, only Mrs. McKormicks is shown hitting Mr. McKormicks onscreen (a preview for "Make Love Not Warcraft" showed Mr. McKormicks about to slug her but cuts off just beforehand, for the final episode this is edited to Mrs. McKormicks actually shown doing so to him uncut).
Averted in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The Nightsisters' cruel abuse of the Nightbrothers, to the point of brainwashing and forcing one to murder his own brother is not portrayed as ok. Savage turns on Ventress rapidly for her abuse and tries to strangle her, and the whole scheme ends in total failure and a subsequent vicious massacre of the Nightsisters by General Grievous.
Occurred on Total Drama Island, but ten times worse during Total Drama Action as Courtney ascended to Jerk Sue status. She has kicked her love interest, Duncan, in the crotch numerous times just in order to win competitions, and sometimes just for flirting with her when she was in a bad mood.
In the animated adaptation of Wayside School, Maurecia, an Action Girl with a crush on Only Sane Man (and Butt Monkey) Todd, hits her love interest with an unprovoked Megaton Punch every chance she gets. She never gets in trouble for this, even when a teacher has seen what happened — although Todd sometimes does. The punches are implied to be something like a sign of Maurecia's affection, or her confusion about her own feelings, and in either case, harmless. Although Todd always rebuffs Maurecia's romantic advances (the only way in which he "provokes" the abuse), he still considers her a friend, spends a lot of time around her, and never, ever complains to a teacher about getting Punched Across the Room. And this is all in a series aimed at children...
Averted in Young Justice. Superboy dumped Miss Martian when she tried to use her telepathy to make him forget he was mad at her.
