"Waiting to cut out the deadwood.
Waiting to clean up the city.
Waiting to follow the worms.
Waiting to put on a black shirt.
Waiting to weed out the weaklings.
Waiting to smash in their windows
And kick in their doors.
Waiting for the final solution
To strengthen the strain.
Waiting to follow the worms."
Bah, those so called “good guys” are
idiots,
freaks, and have no idea how to run things! What we need is a
strong leader who can
make the hard choices and
make the world a better place! Someone who can
purify our race and imprison that
Ragtag Bunch Of Misfits! In the meantime, we’ll just have to put up with that bunch of
liberal hooligans who run
The Federation and give us all that pesky "justice" (treating
us wealthy the same as poor slobs!) and "prosperity" (taking away our competetive motivation by letting common trash gain money! How are we upper classes supposed to
rise to the top without dog-eat-dog competition?), and if they’re late with even a
single solitary welfare check they’ll have hell to pay! I'll probably picket them, if it isn’t too sunny or rainy.
Black Shirts are closet
Evil Minions yearning for the day the villain brings about his
Empire of Evil. In the meantime, they’ll complain about the current "decadent and corrupt" government to anyone who won't roll their eyes. Once the villain starts recruiting, these guys are in line before
Les Collaborateurs have finished breakfast.
The threat that Black Shirts represent is a latent one. While they're harmless on their own or in peacetime, they quickly organize into a formidable force in service of the
Big Bad. Heroes are
nominally obliged not to kill them, but even
The Messiah would be hard pressed to make them do a
Mook Face Turn. What’s more, they completely agree with the
Evil Overlord’s agenda, no matter how cruel, inhuman or insane — even if it means that they’ll end up
Dying Like Animals by its conclusion (a fact they usually ignore). While
Les Collaborateurs are greedy enough that they can be bribed into helping the good guys, Black Shirts do it for fanaticism and can't be swayed by mere money.
Authors with an agenda will often make them into a
Strawman Political for whatever ideology they dislike, and top it off by having them lead by a
Straw Hypocrite. Some character types like
The Libby or the
Jerk Jock (but never the
Jerk With A Heart Of Gold) can become Black Shirts when presented with the right opportunity.
Named after the uniform worn by the
Italian Fascists and by their ineffectual
British imitators
. The Nazis did similarly with brown shirts. Needless to say, this trope is
Truth In Television, since every "evil" ideology has always had followers.
Also see
The Quisling.
Unrelated to
Red Shirt and
Mauve Shirt.
Examples:
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Comic Books
- Large swaths of the Marvel Universe's general populace. It is suprising when we see Muggles actually side with mutants and the like....
- Pro-Nazi bunds were a common foe of the Justice Society Of America in the golden age.
- In Superman Birthright, Superman's first foes are Black Shirts working for Luthor, who truly believe Luthor's theory that Superman is an evil alien invader.
- A good version is seen in Planet Hulk, where the Imperial resistance's morale is bolstered when rumors surface of a mysterious green goliath who put a scar on the Red King's face the first time he entered the ring as a gladiator. The captions put it best, describing how they don't know their peoples' warrior history because those days are long gone, that their fighting streak ended with their fathers' fathers. They don't know how to fight, but all of a sudden... they do.
Film
- Anakin Skywalker to a fair enough extent in Star Wars, though in Episode VI he does a Heel Face Turn and dies because Redemption Equals Death.
- Likewise Stormtroopers follow this trope mostly (at least with the Clone Troopers), they only respond to the emperor and even those who oppose the Empire are only due to the fact their trainer cared for them so much and shown them their Proud Warrior Race Heritage to warrant such a situation. Some other Clone Troopers are disgusted by that though.
- This is lampshaded a bit in one of the Tag & Bink comics; a Stormtrooper goes on a little rant about how in a time of war and confusion, the Emperor brought forth peace, order, public safety, health care, and so on.
Literature
- The Harry Potter series provides numerous examples:
- Filch readily welcomes Dolores Umbridge as Headmistress of Hogwarts because she gives him free reign in his sadistic disciplinary tactics… in fact, hers surpass his!
- Dolores Umbridge herself practically welcomes the new leadership in the Ministry of Magic with open arms, since she’s practically encouraged to persecute Muggle-descended wizards as second-class citizens.
- The Malfoys and other Death Eaters readily lap up Voldemort's views and policies on all non pure-blood Wizards as being inferior, even though Voldemort’s pretty contemptuous of all others himself.
- That seems like more a case of Voldemort tailoring his message specifically to fit their prejudices.
- In several of the Discworld novels, small groups of aristocratic characters are portrayed as plotting against Lord Vetinari so that they can restore the monarchy with a puppet and make their interests policy, even though it's hinted this would be disastrous in the long run, which is why most city leaders are against the idea of a monarchy, even those from noble families such as the Rusts and Venturis who are critical of Vetinari personally.
- Similar to that is the huge throng of people in the Whateley Universe fictions who are supporters of "Humanity First!", an organization opposed to the mutant scourge. Of course, there are Black Shirt types on the other extreme, since there's an extreme mutant organization called "Evolution Rocks". Their most famous poster is of a hand-drawn superman-type dropping said rocks (the size of cars) on baselines below. Sort of polarizes the argument.
- Also note that it sounds exactly like "Humanity First", an anti-mutant hate group in Marvel Comics.
- It gets HILARIOUS when one PC has information about both dropped on his doorstep. Also, in a possible subversion... Humanity first is RIGHT about mutants overcoming humankind. They're just wrong about it being violent. See the Braeburn Report.
- For those who don't want to: The current running theory listed in the Braeburn Report is that mutants are just going to out-breed humanity, which is why there are more female mutants than male, why mutants tend to be attractive, etc etc. There won't be a violent mutant uprising, there doesn't need to be — in 5, 10, 15, 100, etc generations there will simply be more mutant children than normal human children.
- This Troper dares to say it was a bit of an oversight, omitting P.G. Wodehouse's rather merciless (and contemporary-to-the-original) savage parody of the Blackshirts- that, of course, being Sir Roderick Spode and his Blackshorts. He has taken the liberty of rectifying the matter...
- From The Lord Of The Rings: Bill Ferny, Harry Goatleaf, and the rest of the "ruffians" from Bree, plus the malcontent hobbit Ted Sandyman, who are more than happy to join Lotho Sackville-Baggins as hired thugs when he takes over the Shire with Saruman's help.
- Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel It Can't Happen Here chronicles the rise of American fascism based on religious fundamentalists (duped, more or less), economic discontent, and hatred of Communists and socialists. President Buzz Windrip's supporters organize themselves into paramilitary Minute Men units complete with blue uniforms
- In S.M. Stirling's Terminator 2 series (on which no Terminator movies were based), "Luddite" environmental extremists work for Sky Net because wiping out humanity is a good thing.
- Yes... So green, that nuclear carpet-bombing...
- Being an Alternate History, Harry Turtledove's Timeline-191 series features the SS-counterparts in the form of the Freedom Party Stalwarts. The series also mentions the Silver Shirts, who were organised by Oswald Mosley and Evil Churchill in 1920s Britain (which had lost the First World War).
Live Action TV
- Ferguson on Clarissa Explains It All is the quintessential Black Shirt in search of an Evil Overlord to serve... or the quintessential Evil Overlord in search of Black Shirt, he was kind of a Smug Snake anyway.
- The Night Watch in Babylon 5 appears to have been almost entirely composed of Black Shirts.
- The two V miniseries had a youth group that followed the Visitors and helped them in their "we're only taking over for your own good, really" approach to humanity. Loosely based on the Real Life Hitler Youth.
Web Comics
- Gordon Frohman (not Freeman, common mistake) in the Half Life parody comic Concerned is the blackest Black Shirt imaginable. Though not malicious, he is a dim-witted thoroughly pro-Breen and anti-Freeman advocate, doing everything he can to stop the hero and his allies. Thankfully, he's more of a Spanner In The Works who inadvertently helps Freeman at Breen's expense (though he is at least responsible for transforming Ravenholm into the Zombie-infested hellhole it is). He buys into the flimsy propaganda and he can't tell how awful the Combine is, so much so that when he accidentally escapes to Ravenholm he misses living in the oppressive Dystopia so much he makes a spare parts Evil Tower Of Ominousness.
- And don't forget the (unactivated) Strider.
- It frankly seems less that Gordon is too dumb to appreciate freedom, rather that he simply loves tyrrany. In Ravenholm he even sleeps with a plush Combine footsoldier.
Web Original
Western Animation
- In the animated series Reboot, Megabyte's defeat by Matrix frees hundreds of Binomes who he had infected and forced to be his slaves. However, in the film "My Two Bobs," we see a group of former Viral Binomes who actually liked serving Megabyte, since it gave them free reign to bully people. (Plus, it impressed the ladies.) These Black Shirts are reduced to being minor nuisances in the era of prosperity following Megabyte's defeat until said villain returns. They whip themselves into a fairly impressive fighting force despite their limited numbers and ultimately aid Megabyte in gaining control of the Core, which is unfortunately the cliffhanger the series ends on.
- The Libby high school arch-enemy of Kim Possible turns into a Black Shirt when Shego takes over the world.
- Clash is the Black Shirt in the Jem And The Holograms universe—as she's the first Misfits fan we set our eyes on.
Real Life
- Aside from the Trope Namer from Italy, the Nazis had the support of any number of Fascist groups across Europe, most of whom quickly became local Quislings after their countries were overrun. Many of the younger supporters went on to enlist in the Waffen SS, believing the Nazis were fighting to defend Europe against Communism.
- American Fascists actually had a sketchy plan to take over the United States in the 1930s (the Business Plot) and go into the war on the Axis/anticommunist side, which in Real Life never came anywhere near to succeeding or even getting off the ground; but in an Alternate History...
