A character or work perceives oppression/inequality in society. Where does it come from, and who or what is causing it? Why, "The Man" of course! "The Man" is a label used to describe an ambiguous yet powerful authority figure who controls - or at the very least guides - society in order to maintain a status quo perceived as unfair by those applying the label. Other ambiguous or ill-defined substitutes like "the system", "the establishment", and "the order" may also be used.
What "The Man" is can range from a single person like an Evil Overlord or Corrupt Corporate Executive, to a small cabal of people, to a powerful organization or institutional body like The Government. In other words; whoever or whatever is likely to have the motive and means to enforce their will on society.
Whether or not this oppressive force actually exists is debatable. To some extent, this nebulous authority figure is used as a stand-in or placeholder for VERY real systemic issues that are pervasive in the unfair status quo: Capitalism, sexism, racism, liberalism or "PC culture", conservatism, militarism, and many more. In that sense, "The Man" does exist, albeit more as a concept or ideology than a physical entity, so the term anthropomorphizes real-world injustices and gives them a face for people to rally against.
As this extensive and contradictory list of systemic issues indicates, what's perceived as oppressive can be subjective and is often dependent on a person's own identity, as well as the ideologies/beliefs they (and the creator in question) hold. Often, characters who use this argument are portrayed as paranoia-stricken individuals (Properly Paranoid, Conspiracy Theorist, The Paranoiac, Improperly Paranoid) or as Windmill Crusaders, constantly seeing oppression where it doesn’t necessarily exist and equating their ideals' lack of mainstream acceptance with oppression itself. To them, the only reason others aren't in agreement with their perspective is because they are being actively silenced by a higher authority hellbent on preventing any societal change that upends the status quo. Straw Characters like Malcolm Xerox, Straw Feminist, Straw Misogynist, Soapbox Sadie, and Heteronormative Crusader are likely to rely on this framing.
When done well, this trope can be useful for making intangible and difficult-to-solve social issues easier to visualize, thus easier to mobilize against and reform. When done poorly, it can easily come off as fearmongering and scapegoating, even being used by a Straw Hypocrite to deflect from their own hidden agenda.
Compare The Conspiracy, Government Conspiracy, and Corporate Conspiracy, which are about actual oppressive forces that might be called "The Man". See also The Man Is Sticking It to the Man and The Man Is Keeping Us Down, which use a similar understanding of the term, and Inherent in the System, which places the blame specifically on flawed social/political systems. Not to be confused with The Man Behind the Man, which is about a defined villain who is actually the one giving out orders to the person previously introduced as the Big Bad.
Examples
- The kids in Bryan Lee O'Malley's Lost at Sea decided to head for another diner when they couldn't find a Wendy's, because "sometimes it's good to give your money to someone other than The Man". Cue laughter.
- Black Dynamite:
- In Issue #2, The Man is a literal person, a high ranking member of the Illuminati who attempts to recruit Black Dynamite in their scheme to take over the world.
- Paul "the Pole" Monroe's death was a conspiracy organized by Chuck Taylor and Jack Purcell to make sure that no black athlete ever has a famous shoe brand of his own.
- According to Dale in The Rod Squad, his girlfriend Foxy Glove is "[t]he chick who's protecting the people from HASSLES and RIP-OFFS by the MAN".
- Black Dynamite: Black Dynamite is described as waging an eternal crusade against "The Man," believing that there's a conspiracy to undermine the black community that goes all the way to the top. He's absolutely correct. Every antagonist in the film is part of a scheme organized by Richard Nixon.
- Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood: Ashtray and Loc Dog enter a convenience store owned by a Chinese couple and are immediately followed and harangued in a case of racial profiling. Meanwhile, a milquetoast looking white guy is actively stealing from the store. When he takes from the cash register, the male owner stops him only to give him change on his way out. The situation inside escalates with the Loc Dog pulling a gun on the store owners treating them poorly and them doing the same in turn only for shots to be fired. The shooter is the robber from earlier who laughs before tossing the gun at Loc Dog and Ashtray to frame them, who both exclaim "The Man!" The robber then proceeds to cross off Loc Dog's name from a list that includes Mike Tyson, Michael Jackson, O. J. Simpson, and Tupac, implying that the conspiracy is true.
- Jack Black's character in School of Rock rambles about The Man, prompting the kids to stick it to The Man. This leads to one of the kids telling the principal that "[she's] the Man." She thinks it's a compliment.
- Captain Industry, the Big Bad of Defendor. In reality he doesn't actually exist, the protagonist confused a comment about his mother being "killed by the captains of industry" for his mother being "killed by Captain Industry."
- Eddie from Super Fly blames The Man for the existence of the drug trade that he and Priest are enmeshed in.
"I know it's a rotten game. It's the only one The Man left us to play."
- Parodied (like everything else) in Undercover Brother, where the main character has been fighting against the idea of "The Man", but is astonished to learn that there is in fact an actual person who is formally identified as "The Man", as the head of an organization which is dedicated to oppressing the African-American community.
You mean the the conspiracies we've believed for all these years are true? The NBA really did institute the three-point shot to give white boys a chance?Of course!The entertainment industry really is out to get Spike Lee?Come on, man: Even Cher's won an Oscar!And O.J. really didn't do it?Well, uhhmm, let's talk about something else...
- Present in Unbuilt Trope form in 1922 novel One of Ours, as Claude's progressive friend Gladys ruminates on the sort of people who run the world.
“She believed that all things which might make the world beautiful—love and kindness, leisure and art—were shut up in prison, and that successful men like Bayliss Wheeler held the keys.”
- Barney Miller: In "The Harris Incident", Detective Harris is enraged when two NYPD beat cops arrive at the scene of a robbery, take him for the armed robber because he is black, and shoot at him. He gets a lot angrier when Barney tells him that nothing will happen to the two cops right away, that Barney will file a report and things will go "by the book".
Harris: [screaming] You mean the book written by the man?
- Dave Gorman's documentary America Unchained was all about trying to tour America whilst avoiding what was called (at least in the book of the series) "The Man(TM)"- that being the big chains of shops, gas stations, motels and such, in favour of smaller, independent "mom and pop" businesses which were becoming harder to find.
- John Lennon correctly blames The Man for trying to kick him out of the country in "New York City".
- The Ben Folds song "The Ascent of Stan" is sung from the perspective of The Man, about how bad it actually is to be The Man and how he regrets betraying his old values to become The Man.
- Spirit of '77: This being a game about The '70s, all characters have a common goal of sticking it to him.
- The Man applies Rule 34 to capitalism and civil rights violations, according to
Questionable Content.
- In Tigerlily Jones's personal reality in Skin Horse, the eponymous "black ops social services" organisation is The Man. Despite their leader, a female uplifted Spitz, insisting "I am not The Man! For several reasons!"
Tigerlily: Hiding himself inside a cute dog. That's such a "The Man" thing to do.
- Parodied in an episode of The Amazing World of Gumball where Gumball mentions The Man and Idaho is confused as to who he's talking about saying "What man?" and "Who's that?"
- Well, you can tell everybody. Yeah, you can tell everybody. Go ahead and tell everybody. I'm the Man, I'm the Man, I'm the Man...
