Troperville
Editing Help
Tools
Toys
|
"You want to die alone? Fine. You want to keep coming back and never die? That's fine too. In fact, I hope you go on living as the unhappy person you are in the hell you've created for yourself. I hope you live forever. I really do."
Fire Lord Ozai: GET OUT! Get out of my sight right now if you know what’s good for you!
Zuko: That’s another thing. I’m not taking orders from you anymore.
Ozai: You will obey me, or this defiant breath will be your last!
Did Mom and/or Dad leave you without an explanation, only to pop up years later expecting hugs and kisses? Are even YOU tired of listening to your Freudian Excuse? Is endlessly sucking up to the Well Done Son Guy for a tiny crumb of respect really starting to get on your nerves?
Right. Time to take a page from Oedipus Rex and let your parental figure know how you REALLY feel.
It's time to Call The Old Man Out. Or the Old Woman, if it's your mother you have issues with. Time for a real shout-down with that dysfunctional parental figure. Possibly even a beat down, if you really get into it. (We suggest you try not to go any farther than that; killing a parent, even one who arguably deserves it, tends to put you in the villain camp by default. Even Oedipus got nailed for it eventually, remember. And he didn't even KNOW the man was his father.)
You see this trope whenever a child figure (who is most often actually fully adult in age, but in rare cases may still be a child or teenager) goes into full-on confrontational mode with a parent figure they feel has severely wronged them. "Child" and "parent" can be fairly loose here — it's the power relationship that's key, not the genetics. Although the confrontation can be quite longwinded as it plays out, the actual semantic content usually boils down to "Daddy, you SUCK!" Or, less often but still seen, Mommy. For some reason, father figures are far more often targeted for this, due to the general belief that most women tend to be better parental figures than fathers. Or maybe it's just not considered nice to yell at Mom. This can be a double whammy if the "parent" is also The Caretaker, since they're essentially the child's lifeline and are wronging them.
Also, for this trope to come into play, the parental figure must actually have transgressed, or the child figure must have good reason to believe the transgression has happened. If the child figure is not at least somewhat justified in their accusations, it's not Calling The Old Man Out — it's just throwing a temper tantrum.
Bonus points are awarded if the child is able to (correctly) point out that they have managed not to repeat the parental mistakes with their own offspring. Might be subverted if they have tragically repeated exactly the same mistakes with their own offspring.
Sometimes, the writer may not want the child figure to be the one actually doing the calling out. Maybe they want to keep the child figure Really Nice, so nice they won't even yell at an abusive parent. Maybe they want to show that the child figure is still so thoroughly whipped by the abusive parent that they are still incapable of facing them. Maybe the child is hoping that Daddy may still turn out to be good after all, despite the youngling-killing and planet-destroying stuff, and is therefore holding back on giving him the what-for. Maybe they feel that the accusation will seem less whiny if an outsider delivers it, thereby validating the abuse in the eyes of a third person. In such a case, someone who loves the child figure may step in and deliver the calling out vicariously — "How dare you treat your child like that, you monster!" Spouses, boyfriends/girlfriends, aunts/uncles, mentors, best friends, or possibly even older siblings may step in and take on this job for someone unwilling or unable to do it for themselves.
The actual results of Calling The Old Man Out can vary widely. Clearing the air might be a good thing, and result in some kind of parent-child reconciliation. (A common variant is when the parent can provide some kind of reasonable explanation for why bad things were allowed to happen that the child was not previously aware of.) It might result in a permanent break between parent and child. It might even provide a powerful catharsis for the child figure, allowing Character Development to take place through resolving that Freudian Excuse, Parental Abandonment issue, or Well Done Son Guy obsession the character has been carrying around most of his or her life. In extreme cases, the parent, the child, or both, might end up dead.
Or maybe nothing at all changes. ( Homer Simpson has Called Out Abe Simpson a few times, but Status Quo Is God.)
Just out of fairness, it should be mentioned that good old Oedipus himself is not truly an example of this trope, as he did not know he was killing his father when it happened, and was not intentionally doing it as revenge for his father spiking his feet and leaving him to die on a hillside as a baby; Oedipus killed the old man for cutting him off in traffic. Still, it's pretty certain Oedipus would have had a few choice words to say to the guy first, if he had really understood the situation.
Examples
Anime
- In Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Kai, Satoko pulls off one of these during Minagoroshi-hen, despite being terrified of the old man in question. It took all of Keiichi's fate-crushing oratory skills and all of Hinamizawa backing her up, but Satoko finds the courage to oppose her abusive uncle and ask for the help she so desperately needs. Doubles as one of the series' biggest Crowning Moments of Awesome, to boot.
- Umineko No Naku Koro Ni has a rather horrific one of these in its fourth arc. Maria, as a full-fledged witch, finally gets revenge on her abusive mother, Rosa. In between each round of bringing her back from the dead and killing her again in inventively horrible ways, the two of them are yelling about how much they hate each other and accusing each other of ruining their lives.
- Despite REALLY deserving it, Gendo Ikari never actually got Called Out by his son Shinji in Neon Genesis Evangelion, although his wife's ghost did confront him about his behavior close to the end and his last words before dying were "I'm sorry, Shinji". But by then, everyone had a few words for him, including other dead people.
- Doesn't Shinji at least try to do this after Gendo uses the dummy plug system to force Shinji's Eva to attack Toji?
- The manga version, on the other hand, has Shinji wordlessly lunge and punch at Gendo — but is (unfortunately) stopped by Kaji holding him back. The audience does get to savor Gendo's look of complete shock, however, as the punch was less than an inch from connecting with his nose.
- He does land punch on old Gendo 20 issues later. But Gendo's verbally owns Shinji over the next few pages, in fact that rant is the only hint of his motivations we've ever got to see in over a decade of Evangelion, and instead of being a Love Martyr, he turns out to be ugly indeed.
- In both the anime and manga versions of Fullmetal Alchemist, Edward Elric berserks all over his runaway father, Hohenheim. In the anime he went so far as to punch him; in the manga (so far), it's just been yelling... until now, that is.
- Yu-Gi-Oh GX: Judai first calls Manjyome's older brothers on the way they mistreat and disrespect him, and Manjyome later finally gives them what they have coming in a duel.
- Fate Testarossa in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, after years of abuse by her mother Mad Scientist Precia, subverts this when instead of calling her mother out, she tries to redeem her to the very end. Instead, Nanoha and Lindy are the ones to call her out. Psycho lady just shakes their insults off and commits suicide with the jar containing the dead body of little Alicia, the daughter Fate was supposed to replace.
- Although Ranma and Genma from Ranma 1/2 routinely fight as part of both their training routine and their personal interaction, the former really let the latter have it when he recalled that his father regularly bullied him for food... merely because Ranma was still comparatively weaker and couldn't stop the then-older, stronger martial artist from taking his meal. And let's not forget the incidents with the Cat Fist or the very fact that Ranma turns into a woman because of him...
- In a rather surprising instance, Kasumi, of all people, gets angry enough to yell at Genma and demand explanations for why he took Ranma to a place as dangerous as Jusenkyo.
- In the anime, an exclusive episode has Tatewaki Kuno call out his father, when the latter attempts to return to their estate and retake command after having abandoned them to their own devices for at least three years. Between this and the downright abusive way that his father treated him early in life, Tatewaki Kuno refuses to allow this to happen, actually challenging his father to a fight. Kuno technically wins the fight, but the principal decieves him and kicks him off the roof when Kuno has him almost beaten. While this doesn't do anything serious to Kuno, the principal declares that he will not return to the estate and goes back to Furinkan High, possibly afraid after having realised that his son A: truly hates him, and B: is quite capable of kicking his ass. The two do seem to get on a little better afterwards, but they're still a dysfunctional family to the core.
- In Digimon Savers, Touma calls his father out for never standing up to his grandmother for him, for further endangering his half-sister Relena's life, and for being manipulated by the Manipulative Bastard Kurata.
- Ryuunosuke in Urusei Yatsura does this to her father on a regular basis. Considering that he's raised her all her life as a boy and goes to great lengths to keep her away from anything feminine, this is somewhat understandable.
- Code Geass: The whole point of Lelouch's rebellion is to call his Darwinist Old Man The Emperor out. And after he fails epically at the first attempt, he starts it all over again in the second season.
- However, when he does finally get to call out the Emperor (and his own mother!) in person, it becomes one of his many moments of pure awesome.
- Also, Forgotten Childhood Friend Suzaku tries to do that to his dad, Japanese Premier Genbu Kururugi, when Genbu decides he'd rather sacrifice the whole Japan than surrender. It horribly backfires as young Suzaku kills his father in the process, which allows Britannia to invade the country. Suzaku himself is so traumatised that, despite never being formally punished, ends up with Laser Guided Amnesia and attempts to become The Atoner... with even worse results.
- In the Suzaku of the Counterattack manga, Genbu does the opposite; he schemes with the Emperor to eliminate the remaining Japanese officials who supported continuing the war. Suzaku overhears it and ends up killing his father. In the Knightmare of Nunnally adaptation, this is averted. C.C. kills Genbu when he's about to kill Lelouch.
- Near the end of Princess Tutu, Rue rebels against the Raven—who had raised her after he kidnapped her as a child—by saving Mytho from him and shouting at him "You're not my father!" Later, Mytho and Rue deliver the final blow to the Raven together.
- Calling The Old Man Out is a regular occurrence between Hachimaki and Goro Hoshino in Planetes, because the latter pretty much abandoned his family on Earth to pursue his career as an astronaut. Not that it actually works, since Hachi shares Goro's all-consuming passion for space.
- In Narutaru, Akira Sakura eventually calls out her father, who is heavily implied to have sexually abused her when she was younger, by stabbing him to death. This is a Shrinking Violet we're talking about here, by the way.
- Bunny Drop's Daikichi calls out his entire family after each and every one of them are either unable or unwilling to take in his grandfather's illegitimate daughter (age 6) by telling them that she'll grow into a much better adult than any of them and asking Rin if she wants to come live with him.
- In chapter 440 of Naruto, Naruto calls out his father Minato Namikaze (quite physically at first
 ◊), the 4th Hokage, (or the spirit of the 4th, it's not really clear) on his decision to seal the Nine-tails in Naruto, which led to his early years of loneliness and becoming a target of Akatsuki. Minato goes on to explain his reasons, but he does acknowledge that he caused Naruto a great deal of pain and that he probably doesn't have a right to act like a father anymore.
- In Oishinbo the main character and his father are rivals and the relationship is not pretty.
- Full Metal Panic. Andrei Karlinin's life is spared by the leader of the A12 terrorist group because she reminds him of their own surrogate father, a former mercenary who trained the group of delinquent youths in survival and warfare, but who failed to prepare them to live in a Japan at peace. Her dying words as she's cradled in Karlinin's arms are "You speak like you know everything. I hate you. You make me sick." It's obvious who she's really referring to.
Comic Books
- Invincible calls his father out for lying to him and for the whole "world domination" bit. They eventually come to blows and they wreck a few continents in the ensuing, bloody brawl. It later turns out that said Calling Out ended up in the old man's Heel Face Turn.
- This is the entire driving motivation for Jesse Custer in Preacher, except instead of calling out his father, he wants to call out the Father of all Creation.
- X-Men: Scott Summers' father was abducted by aliens when he and his brother were fairly young; when Dad showed up many years later, Scott vented his displeasure that a) he hadn't bothered to come back and look for them earlier, despite having plenty of opportunity, and b) he'd become a ruthless space pirate in the interim. The animated series used a similar storyline, with even more shouting on Scott's part.
- Happens with distressing and perfectly typical regularity to Batman. The ones doing the calling out tend to be Nightwing and Oracle — the oldest son and the not-quite-daughter with the most equal standing with Batman. Oracle criticizes him openly a lot more than Nightwing does, whereas Nightwing's are more violent.
- In a recent Spider-man story "American Son" Harry Osborn finally does this to his father Norman Osborn(aka Green Goblin, aka Iron Patriot, aka Worst father in comics ever).
Film
- A subplot of the well-cast film The Quick and the Dead. Leonardo diCaprio's young, confident gunslinger spends most of his time in a gunfighting tournament provoking his father (Gene Hackman) into a duel. Hackman asks diCaprio not to duel him, but when diCaprio refuses to back down, Hackman shoots him down immediately.
- Satine to Harold Zidler, a man who has been like a father to her, when he tries to prevent her from running away with Christian. Naturally, her outburst prompts him to make The Reveal (known to the audience already) that she is dying of tuberculosis.
- A somewhat Kick The Dog example is found in the end of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, where a father in his deathbed is slapped around and insulted by Gay Perry for sexually molesting his daughter. Harry at the end justifies this by saying, "Don't worry, he was creepy."
- For a female example, Christina Ricci's character Rae in Black Snake Moan calls out her mom in the middle of a Quick Stop over her mother willfully ignoring years of sexual abuse. This leads to a full out brawl in the middle of the store aisles.
- Dr. Ruth in Scanners doesn't get this treatment until after he's dead. Once Cameron learns that Dr. Ruth was his father who had him kept as a Human Popsicle his whole life, he is horrified, and does nothing to defend Ruth from the insults of Big Bad Darryl Revok ("That was Daddy."). And when the inevitable Not So Different moment comes up, it's not Revok comparing himself to Cameron; it's Cameron comparing Revok to Ruth. And Revok is outraged.
- In Peter Jackson's Braindead, Lionel finally stands up to his manipulative, possessive mother. Unfortunately he's waited until she's turned into a gigantic monstrosity, but he's still properly equipped to take her down the old-fashioned way.
- Joshua in Little Odessa does this several times to his father, with escalating hostility and violence. The reasons are numerous: his father is a strict, belt-wielding figure, harsh on his younger son and even harsher on the elder (for good reasons, though). Moreover, he cheats on his wife. However, Joshua is definitely not the victimized party: he was banished from home for being a hitman and not due to some insignificant offense.
- Used in The Addams Family with Fester/Gordon after his fake mother pushes him just a little too far...
- The whole of "When Did You Last See Your Father?" is a flashback onto this guys life story which basically (?) leads up to a massive subversion where he should have called his father out but forgives his father on his death bed.
Literature
Live Action TV
- One moment from The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air pops up in "You cry, you lose" threads on forums more than possibly any other scene in TV history: Will's father deciding to abandon him once again, leading Uncle Phil to deal him a scathing remark before Will walks in. After his father leaves, Will vents his anger to Phil, calmly at first, before eventually breaking down into tears and hugging Phil as the episode ends—"How come he don't want me, man?"
- Sam and Dean Winchester spent about half a season calling out their father John for his various sins toward them on Supernatural, until eventually he died, saving Dean's life in the process. Well, that's one way to make it up to the kid.
- For some reason, this happens a lot on Heroes:
- In the first season, Nathan Petrelli made it clear what he thought of his mother for her willingness to sacrifice her younger son, Nathan's brother Peter, for the "greater good". They're still on (somewhat strained) speaking terms in Season Two, however.
- Matt Parkman found out he shared mind powers with the father who abandoned him at age 13. He then engaged his father in a mental battle in which he locked the man in a mental version of the very apartment where the abandonment took place many years in the past. Matt added a "And unlike you, I'M a good father!" kicker to all of this as well.
- Claire Bennet read the riot act to her father when his increasing paranoia caused serious problems for his family and particularly for Claire. While she made some good points, the unfortunate truth was that his paranoia was actually justified...
- Sylar does this to his biological father. Though he pretty much failed at that. He goes in ready to kill him for killing his bio-mom only to find that he’s dying of cancer and he’d be doing him a favor. He learns that he has already made the same mistakes as his father and when he demonstrates that he’s already surpassed him in terms of power and is effectively immortal Samson simply replies “You just have that much longer to suffer.” In the end he is still living in his parents' shadow by going after the “Big Game” to prove him wrong.
- Rita in Dexter lets her mother have it after her mom moves in and starts rearranging her life.
- Lee Adama's closing speech at Baltar's trial on the new Battlestar Galactica included Calling The Old Man Out (for a twofer, as father and as "the Old Man" as commander of the ship) for some of Adama Senior's actions (however justified they might have been), not to mention at mother-figure Laura Roslin.
- Lee has called out his father several times - for example, he believed Adama was the main cause of the death of his brother Zack - pressuring him to become a Viper pilot despite his lack of aptitude. Lee also opposed his father on the issue of martial law to the point of being sent to the brig for it.
- Sawyer unknowingly does this for Locke's father in Lost which culminates in Sawyer killing him. When Sawyer learns of this revelation, he finds out that's precisely why Locke wanted him to meet him since the man had done terrible wrongs of the same nature to the both of them.
- More recently, Sun has done this to her father, chewing him out for his treatment of her husband. She also informed him that she had bought a controlling share in his company. It was awesome.
- Comes up many, many, MANY times in Alias. To the point where it's maybe half of Sydney's interactions with Jack, Sydney's interactions with Irina, and, eventually, Nadia's interactions with Sloane.
- Lex Luthor does this to Lionel every other Sunday in Smallville. Well, he did it before he threw the old man out a window.
- The Voice of Jor-El's been called out a few times as well, both by Clark and by Jonathan on Clark's behalf.
- On Frasier, the reverse is usually true; Martin (the Old Man) often ends up calling out his two sons Frasier and Niles for their poor behaviour, especially towards him. Martin isn't the perfect father, however, and on occasion Frasier and Niles call him out with justifiable complaints; such as the time Martin berated Frasier and Niles for not welcoming a woman Martin liked with open arms because they didn't like her, only for Frasier and Niles to angrily point out that Martin himself never bothered to make the effort to be welcoming to any of their love interests if he didn't like them.
- Near the end of OZ, Ryan O'Reilly confronts his father, whose abuse arguably shaped him into the sociopathic Manipulative Bastard that he is and probably led to the current conditions that he and his brother Cyril are in. He promptly tells him that if he ever comes out of prison, he will immediately hunt him down and murder him.
- Parodied on The Colbert Report - when mentor and father figure Bill O'Reilly makes a derogatory comment about how badly the show is coping during a writer's strike, saying that Colbert "can't even find the cameras", Colbert reacts with a violent "FUCK YOU, OLD MAN!!" tirade... to the wrong camera. He realises this, and immediately apologises - "Busted."
- Done for laughs on Titus. Titus has a flashback, when he tried to do the 'coming of age' thing by picking a fight with his father. Cut to the 'fist cam' of dad knocking Titus on his ass. Dad happens to be played by Stacy Keach. If you have ever seen the film 'The Ninth Configuration', you know what a bad idea it is to mess with 'Killer Kaine'.
- In one episode of Wings, Joe and Brian's mother, who abandoned them as children, returns to the island. Brian is thrilled to see her, but Joe is not so forgiving:
"I was twelve years old; you left me with a sinkful of dirty dishes and two kids to take care of, Brian and Dad. I have taken crap my whole life for being too serious, for being a worrier. Well, why do you think that is, huh?"
- Made stronger by the fact that, just after arriving, the mother makes light of Joe's non-forgiveness, saying he was 'anal even in the womb'. She slinks out of his anger by admitting the stunningly obvious - that she's just a lousy mother. One basic rule of Wings : Joe is never allowed to successfully call out anyone, ever.
- In the last ever episode of The Fast Show Competitive Dad's father comes round for Christmas, and is an even worse bully than his son. In a touching moment for a comedy sketch show, the grandson snaps and tells the old man off... only for his dad to start with the 'How dare you talk to my father like that' routine. A moment later when granddad has left he finally tells his son he loves him.
- Dinah does this to her mother, Black Canary, in Birds Of Prey when she comes back and says she wants to "make things right."
- In an episode of HBO's True Blood, Tara's alcoholic mother will not bail her our of jail after she had done the same thing for her many times before. "The first time I'm in trouble you turn your back on the one person whose stood by you. After all the times I cleaned you up? All the times you beat me, and stole my money? My whole life is shit because of you! You're not my mother. Get out my sight you evil bitch!" Tara's mom tries to say, "I love you." Tara won't have it. "No you don't. You never did."
- Subverted in The Sopranos: After Tony finds out that mother tried to have him killed, he goes to her retirement home to Call The Old Woman Out, only to find that she's had a stress-induced stroke, and is probably unable to consciously hear any of his rage-fueled confrontation.
- This continues in later seasons, as Tony tries to call her out more than once about her attempt at killing him, and the heaps of psychological abuse she's put on him and his family over the years. Each attempt never comes to any kind of definitive resolution of their issues. In the end, she dies at the beginning of the third season, leaving Tony psychologically scarred with no clear picture or resolution of his feelings of his mother, and this affects him for years afterwards.
- In the second season finale of Weeds, Shane uses the occasion of his elementary school valedictory speech to Call Out The Entire Community.
- In Firefly, Simon calls out his father on his callous disregard for River's abuse at the Academy.
- South Of Nowhere has Spencer calling out Paula after the latter has spent too much time at the hospital (fueling speculation that she may actually be having an affair).
- In Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Bashir calls out his father for not only running away from his problems, but for having him undergo an illegal genetic enhacements operation so as to avoid the shame of having a special-needs child.
- Not entirely sure that Gregory House is physically capable of going a week without calling the parent(s) of a young patient insensitive, incompetent, overprotective, a Jerkass or any of a thousand other kinds of general idiot.
- On That 70s Show, Eric gets a Crowning Moment of Awesome when he finally stands up to his overbearing father Red, who is particularly bitter over having sold his Corvette to raise money for what he thinks is his wife Kitty's pregnancy, only to realize he did it for nothing when Kitty's actually going through menopause. After Red snaps at Eric one too many times, Eric finally loses his temper and tears a strip off Red for whining about losing his Corvette, when Kitty is extremely upset and needs his support. Eric concludes by reminding Red of all the times he'd told Eric to "be a man", and then tells Red to practice what he preaches and "be a man" for his wife.
- Hugo's Crowning Moment of Awesome on The Vicar Of Dibley is when, after being told by his emotionally and mentally abusive father David that if he marries Alice then "you will no longer be welcome in this house, you will no longer be my son, and as this will attests, you will have nothing!" he actually stands up to David (a rare feat for him), shoves the will back at him, and says, respectfully but coldly, "On the contrary, sir, I shall have everything in the world that I desire."
- Happens a few times on Veronica Mars, given how common terrible parenting is in Neptune:
- Logan hates his Dad, and is calls him out a few times - once on Lynn's death, which Aaron is held accountable for, given how he cheated on her until she couldn't take it, and threw herself off a bridge. Later, in season 2, the two are put in a jail cell together, and Logan yells at Aaron about the fact he slept with then killed Logan's girlfriend, then tried to kill Logan's next girlfriend, despite Aaron's denials.
- Dick gets a pretty epic one in season 3, when his Dad suddenly returns and he calls Dad out on the way they treated Cassidy, how much responsibility they have in Cassidy killing a dozen people and throwing himself off a hotel roof, and why Dad didn't come back for Cassidy's funeral.
- In the season 1 finale, Veronica has become completely disillusioned with her mother, yells at her for not going through the rehab Veronica put her in, and making Veronica's college money a waste. She's so angry she kicks Lianne out.
- In season 2, Trina finds out who her biological father is, and calls him out for abandoning her in a bathroom at the school he taught at.
- Gloria Stivic does this a lot on All in the Family. She chides Archie for his treatment of Edith, and takes him to task for his bigoted remarks, particularly against women. At times she hits him on top of the head.
Mythology
- A reoccuring theme in Greek mythology. Cronus does it to his father Uranus, as punishment for imprisoning his children, and Zeus does it to his father Cronus in turn, for doing his damndest to swallow all of his own children at birth. In both cases, it ends in a rather permanent Groin Attack.
- Achilles does it to Agamemnon, the commander of the Greek forces at large, in The Iliad. Agamemnon responds by taking Achilles' war prize, kicking off the plot.
Music
- The name of this trope comes from the Garth Brooks song "The Night I Called the Old Man Out", in which the narrator and his father come to blows. It's never quite revealed what exactly the father is being called out for, but by the end of the song the son relents, realizes his father is right, and "prays someday he's half the man he is."
- This editor believes either a songwriter, singer, or someone closely associated with the band Simple Plan must have had some serious father issues, because a fair number of their songs are about just this: "Shut Up", "Perfect", "One Day", "You Don't Mean Anything"...
- The Johnny Cash song "A Boy Named Sue" deals with a man on a search to find his old man, who abandoned him at a very young age and left him with the titular name (which lead, as you might expect, to a lot of bullying for the kid). When Sue finally finds his father, he calls him out with "My name is Sue! How do you do! Now you gonna DIE!", then starts throwing punches.
- Of course, after the fight, Sue learns An Aesop about how his Dad was just trying to help him be strong after he knew he was leaving.
- This troper felt that was kind of an added "screw you", as it implies his Dad always planned on abandoning him, even before he was born.
- "Sue" appears to feel the same way, as the end of the song has him adamantly stating that he'll name his son any given boy's name under the sun before he considers giving him a girl's name, even if he does have to leave him.
- Skillet's song "Open Wounds" is essentially about a young man calling his father out for being emotionally distant in his life (with lyrics like "How could you hate me/When all I ever wanted to be was you?") The song is based on frontman John Cooper's rocky relationship with his father after his mother died of cancer, but they've since made up.
- Dream Theater's "Honor Thy Father" is pretty much exactly this. Directed towards a step father, but a pretty venomous rendition of the trope nonetheless.
- Drummer Mike Portnoy wrote this song about his stepfather. He explained, "I'm not very good at writing love songs, so I decided to write a HATE song!"
- Metallica's "Dyers Eve" is mostly this, with both parents being called out.
- Reversed in Ayreon's "Day 16: Loser" off "The Human Equation". Here we have the abusive, alchoholic, jerkass, complete monster of a father berating and calling out his own son while in the hospital. He goes on about how weak, helpless and pathetic his son is before leaving. The closest we get to a response is when the son's rage persona freaks out and screams at the father.
- Pearl Jam' Better Man is a good example.
- Even more: it's inspired by Eddie Vedder's abusive stepfather, whom he referred to as "the bastard who married my mama".
- Lifehouse's Walking Away and Blind are both good examples of this.
- Nickelback Never Again: "Haven't you heard you don't hit a lady", "You're just a child with a temper", "Father's a name you haven't earned yet", "Kicking your ass would be a pleasure".
- 3 Doors down. Sarah Yellin' at the whole family.
- Iron Maiden's "Wratchild".
- Korn's "Daddy"
- Disturbed's "Down with the Sickness", though done symbolically - the "mother" in question represents society.
Tabletop RPG
- The Horus Heresy, where Calling The Old Man Out resulted in a galaxy-splitting civil war which left trillions dead, trapped a comatose Crystal Dragon Jesus on life support, and started ten thousand years of the worst regime imaginable as mankind slowly shudders its way towards extinction. Never let it be said that Warhammer 40000 does anything by halves.
- Well, it does a few people by halves, but only after the chainswords have been shut down.
Theater
Hamlet: Now, mother, what's the matter?
Gertrude: Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
Hamlet: Mother, you have my father much offended.
- And again, a few lines later:
Gertrude: Have you forgotten me?
Hamlet: No! By the rood, not so. You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife, and–would it not be so!-you are my mother.
Video Games
- The father and son of Final Fantasy X set up a Calling The Old Man Out throughout the entire game (case in point: in a Flashback where a young Tidus doesn't show any grief for his missing father and wishes that he'll never come back, his mother asks him if he won't wish for his return so that he can tell him how much he hates him). Near the end of the game they subvert it when Tidus, who has sympathized too much with his father to resent him anymore, tries to call out Jecht despite the tears from his eyes and the knot in his throat. To his credit, Jecht had already acknowledged what a horrible father he had been.
- In the last chapter of Max Payne 2, checking Senator Woden's phone messages will reveal a recent one where Vlad, who saw Woden as a father figure, rants about having never received a word of thanks from him. This is a rather extreme example of the trope, as Vlad was planning to kill Woden.
- Vlad is also pretty egotistical about it. "Would it have killed you to say 'thank you' for once in your life? 'Vlad, my son—can I call you my son, because I sure do love you like one. Vlad, my son, you are a true prodigy. Everything you touch turns to gold!'"
- Kazuya Mishima from Tekken, after being thrown to a ravine by his father Heihachi, when in tender age of 5 nonetheless, made a Deal With The Devil to get back up, build up his strength, topple his father, and then throw him back to the same ravine he was thrown.
- Oswald does this to Odin at the end of the first episode of Odin Sphere.
- Velvet and Ingway had a few moments of chewing out their illegitimate daddy Odin as well, although they went about it in entirely different ways: Velvet outright rejected him; Ingway whipped up an army of Netherworld denizens, learned a secret transformation, and then stormed his kingdom and tried to kill him.
- Cornelius arguably has a moment like this with his dad: After one royal blunder too many, King Edmund tries to abdicate the throne and give the crown to his son. Cornelius tells him that he can't - the people will never accept a cursed Pooka as their king - and while Edmund never deserved the crown in the first place, now is the time for him to stop being a coward and act like a true ruler.
- Balthier attempts to call out his father in Final Fantasy XII, but Cid basically just ignores it.
- In Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, the protagonist Alucard does this to his father Dracula:
- You have exactly one chance to do this in Fallout 3 after rescuing your father from Tranquility lane, but dissapointingly it changes nothing.
- In Dragon Quest VII, Winged Humanoid Pendragon gets called out by his elderly mother on behalf of his adopted daughter, Firia. Who isn't adopted, mind - she was just born without wings, and he pretended she was just an abandoned orphan because he was too scared to admit his 'flesh and blood was flawed'. This included standing by while his other daughter treated Firia like a slave, and while the other kids in Gorges mocked and abused her — at one point their 'pranks' almost cause her to fall to her death.
- The penultimate mission in Oni is something like this: Konoko raids the TCTF headquarters in an attempt to call out Griffin (her nearest thing to a father figure, save her dead uncle, after years of systematically lying to her and using her, and ultimately trying to have her killed. Once he is cornered, the player is given a choice: you can kill Griffin or let him live. If you choose the latter option, the fianl boss is much easier as a consequence, and Griffin redeems himself at the very end.
- Two of the "messenger quests" on Knights of the Old Republic have this trope, and a third has an arguable variant on it. The most literal one is Carth's seems the son he thought dead has actually joined the Sith. Cue one awkward as hell moment in the Korriban academy with two hot-headed Onasis. Bastila's is a female version her terminally-ill and rather ill-tempered mother on Tatooine needs help retrieving a data holocron made by Bastila's late father. The arguable one is Mission's, as her deadbeat brother was the one who more or less raised her. She finds out it was his idea to abandon her at the age of twelve. Cue a lot of players wanting to kick the guy's blue butt into orbit!
Web Comics
- Roy does this several times over the course of The Order of the Stick to his father's ghost, most recently in comic 500.
Roy: "Yeah? Well, I think there may be a flaw in your plan, Dad, because... Well, because screw you."
Roy: "I just want you, personally, to know: If it weren't for the threat to the entire world, I would tell you to shove your 'blood oath' against Xykon up your wrinkled incorporeal ass."
- Sluggy Freelance - Any time Riff and his mom are in the same room together. Still waiting for Zoe to do the same, though
- Fairly early on in Sabrina Online, Sabrina tells her passive-aggressively controlling mother, Endora, gently, but in no uncertain terms to quit trying to control her life or sooner or later, she'll find herself completely shut out of her life.
- In Flipside, Crest lets his former mentor, Orransong, know exactly why he dropped out of Knights of La-Shoar training: because he saw Orransong strike his (Crest's) blind mother for daring to question the Knights' prohibition against magic (magic that could've restored her sight years ago). That he was expected to emulate and uphold that sort of behavior was too much for Crest, and he lets Orransong know it, in so many words.
- Roast Beef, after one insult too many from Grandma K, finally snaps at her for being a control freak and leaves her to take care of herself.
Roast Beef: "Old woman listen to me. You have forbidden me from pleasure since the day I was born. Now I pay for this house and I pay for your wine. So as of this day I am the LAW and I am the LASH do you hear me!"
- Will Erixon of Fans has a confrontation with his abusive wife murdering father after he gets sprung from jail as part of a greater conspiracy against him and his friends. To add insult to injury, after Will beats the bastard into the ground, he gets shot full of bullets by FIB agents, and then his corpse gets pistol whipped by Will's girlfriend Shanna.
Theatre
Western Animation
- In the King Of The Hill episode "Death Picks Cotton", Peggy Hill finally gets to chew out her father-in-law, Cotton, for how much of a complete jerk he's been to his son (Hank) for all of his life. The kicker? She waits until he's on his deathbed to let him have it. (And then, as soon as she's done, Cotton dies.)
- However, as part of her speech Peggy made the repeated point that she hoped Cotten would live to see the hell he created for himself. Cotton's last words are, "Do ya now?" Cotton dying on the spot was probably his last act of spite to Peggy.
- Hank was usually pretty good at rolling with Cotton's punches, but there were still a few times Cotton pushed him too far. In one instance Hank warns him that if he insults his mower (or his mother) one more time, he's no longer welcome in his house. In another, Hank snaps and outright tells Cotton that he hates him (which Cotton reacts poorly too).
- Avatar The Last Airbender: Katara loudly vents her pain and frustration at her father for leaving her and her brother behind to fight in the war; Hakoda, loving father that he is, takes it like a man, expresses his regret and asks her forgiveness, which she finally gives to him.
- In a similar situation, Katara yells at the Northern Waterbending Master Pakku, the most powerful Waterbender in the whole Avatar world, for his old school chauvinism. This is completely justified, as the chauvinism prevents Katara from being of as much assistance to the Avatar as she should be just because she's female. In a beautiful irony, Pakku was engaged to Katara's grandmother, Kana. And she had refused to sit still for the chauvinism as well. If she had, Pakku would have been Katara's grandfather, and Katara would have ended up calling out two different older generations. Well, they *did* get together in the end of the series, so...
- Lastly, Katara calls out another man responsible for her childhood trauma, the man that killed her mother. If you think she needs to give the lectures a rest, this time she was showing restraint. She was going to skewer the guy with icicles.
- Toph calls out both parents in her debut episode, telling them (politely) that she likes being a fighter and is tired of them overprotecting her. Unfortunately, her father decides this means she needs to be protected even more.
- The most epic scene of Calling The Old Man Out in Avatar, however, has to go to Zuko confronting Ozai for controlling him, making him feel worthless, burning his face, banishing him for three years and generally being an evil, contemptible douchebag . It pisses off Ozai so much that he tries to kill Zuko with lightning. It doesn't work. This scene is not only epic for Zuko in general, it marks his actual Heel Face Turn, making up for the fake-out he'd done before.
- In Justice League Unlimited, upon his resignation, Captain Marvel does this to his former idol Superman, citing how the man of steel and the team, or rather organization, as a whole have become infatuated with their power, distracted from their original purpose, and forgotten how to be heroes.
- Clay Puppington, Moral Orel's father, got double-whammied. Already a less-than-stellar father, in the second season's finale he sunk to new depths. He got progressively drunk throughout the day, went into a mad rant that night, accidentally shot Orel, blamed Orel for it, tore Orel's lucky shirt for a tourniquet, then drank the rubbing alcohol Orel had brought for exactly that kind of emergency. The drinking alone had gotten Orel to anxiously tell his father he didn't like it when Clay drank, but all the other stuff forced Cheerful Child Orel to utter the three magic words: "I hate you." Clay's response: "Hate away, Sister. Hate away..." The second whammy comes at the end of the third season's premiere, when we learn he overheard the tail-end of a conversation between Orel and his mother, in which Orel sincerely questioned why his mother married his father, and his wife dismiss Orel's claims that Clay became a different man when he drinks as "his true nature coming out." Clay got into bed soon after with an expression this troper hopes meant he was thinking "My God What Have I Done".
- Most of the season tries to show Clay getting worse, up until finally the only man who cared for him decided to abandon him, forever dooming him to a miserable marriage, though his kids do grow up and have relatively happy lives.
- The Teen Titans' Raven got in on the act, too, in her CMOA for the final act of "The End, Part 3." Anything else would be Spoileriffic.
- Unless you read the comic it was based on, then you already know how it goes.
- In Oban Star Racers, after Don Wei tells Molly that he knows that she's really his daughter, Eva, she unloads on him for abandoning her at a boarding school for most of her childhood (without so much as a letter) and not even recognizing her when she first joined the team.
- In the Disney Film The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Quasimodo gives an incredible speech to Frollo.
Frollo: Now- now, l-listen to me, Quasimodo-
Quasimodo: No, you listen! All my life you've told me that the world is a dark, cruel place! But now I see that the only thing dark and cruel about it is people like you!!!
- As mentioned above, the '90s Animated X-Men series condensed and distilled Cyclops' resentment of Corsair (originally a 3-issue-long storyline) into one Tear Jerker of a rant to a shamefaced Corsair, even as he helps him escape a crooked Shi'Ar cop.
|
|
