Have You Tried Not Being A Monster - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Fantastic Homophobia

Madeline Drake: [to her son Bobby] Have you ever tried... not being a mutant?

- X2: X-Men United

There's a certain group of people. They have a normal childhood, to an extent, but somewhere along the way, they discover they're different. Not like the other children. Not like their parents. They're something unusual. Something that means they can never fit in. They hide their differences deep away from themselves, but it eats away at them.

Then they find others like them - also living in secret and ostracized from society. A subculture, upholding a masquerade of being normal by day, but living out a secret lifestyle in seedy bars and locations. They might ask their family if they would still love them, chances are if they ever tell their parents, acceptance will be hard, and they'll inevitably be asked, "Have you tried... not being a monster?"

This story is familiar to many real-life minorities, the most well known example being gay people, so it's not that surprising that it's so often used for various fantastical creatures as well. Often as part of The Masquerade, you have at least someone hiding who they are from their parents.

In some cases, this appears to be a way to introduce gay themes into a plot when they're too cowardly to introduce actual gay characters or when they feel that allegory or metaphor will be less likely to be censored. Some writers go farther and do have gay characters, sometimes making the metaphor explicit in the text. In these cases, it can result in certain characters reacting in a way that some real-life people react to gays, but that makes no sense in the actual context.

In its best use, this kind of scene can create an effective allegory for a better perspective at how ignorantly shallow, unrealistic and unfair that kind of attitude is to seriously ask someone to deny an inherent part of their being that harms no one. More realistic period stories can do the same by asking the same stupid question about asking left-handed people if they ever tried being right handed like "normal" people, a result of an old Western cultural prejudice that has thankfully finally died out.

In other cases, it seems to be simply the natural outcome of the circumstances the story is set in. If there is a stigmatized difference that is not readily apparent or can be disguised (especially one that appears when the character is old enough to hide it), chances are that characters will try to hide it to avoid being judged, and that if/when they come out, it'll come as a unpleasant shock to someone.

As one can imagine, this trope can have myriad Unfortunate Implications, although the intent is usually to deal with a social issue without causing a moral panic. Remember, tropes are not bad.

Examples:

Comic Books

X-Men, to the point of extreme lampshade hanging, where people (like Spider Man) in some issues get gays and mutants confused. Mutants who can pass for human are sometimes referred to being "in the closet". The biggest group of people rallying against mutants are conservative Christians, who think their existence is a sin against God. There have been numerous attempts to "cure" mutants, as well as to kill them off as "abominations". Basically, after the racial civil rights of the 60s and 70s cooled down, the franchise was adapted to mirror the gay rights struggle, which it actually fits better in many respects (since mutants can be born to anyone and don't become different until puberty).
- Then during the '90s during the gay AIDS epidemic, mutants were given a disease called the Legacy Virus that was essentially, mutant AIDS. When asked when it would be cured, writers responded "Not until AIDS is cured". Apparently, nobody at Marvel actually expected a cure for AIDS to elude humanity for over two decades, so it became a Plot Tumor of asking the greatest scientists in the universe who can create dimensional portals and cybernetics "When is that cure coming again?", every month. So the cure was eventually found.
- Of course, on the other hand, homosexuals can't throw fireballs or blow up your head by looking at you funny, so maybe it isn't quite the same after all.
- See the X2: X-Men United entry below.
- Parodied in ItsJustSomeRandomGuy's Youtube series Hi, I'm a Marvel... and I'm a DC:
Superman: But I've got friends who are mutants! Like... uh, Spider-Man?
Spider-Man: Hey, I'm not a mutant! ...Not That Theres Anything Wrong With That.
- This is taken to its logical extreme in Dark Avengers-X-Men: The Beginning, where it's revealed that the San Francisco neighborhood known as the Castro is a mutant neighboorhood instead of a gay community like in real life. Vote no on Prop X and all that. Goddammit, Marvel, there are actual gay people in your universe.
  - Attention, Tropers. "White and black ganged up on green". That is all.
  - Except M-Day and other events eliminated all possible similarities between gay people and mutants! There are, at a maximum, 500 mutants alive worldwide. Theirs is the last generation; no more are being born. So, among other things, the idea of mutants as an even somewhat visible minority anymore is ridiculous.
  - But M-Day didn't occur until relatively recently. Before that, mutants were a lot more common (and indeed, was the reason writers did M-Day in the first place) for long enough.
  - So the loud minority ended up exterminated? That's... dark.
Runaways played with the trope with Karolina, who felt different all her life without ever knowing why, and there eventually comes the major revelation that she is an alien. However, it turned out she was an alien and gay, and she asked herself this question. When the team had unknowingly let a vampire into their hideout, before Karolina came out to her friends, she mentions to the newcomer how she hates always feeling different and abnormal, and she decides that she wants to feel like a normal teenage girl (And since she is sixteen, and he is cute, and they are alone...). Of course, it is never that simple, and in a very Real Life way (Except for the Vampire and alien bits) she falls into a suicidal depression when she can not fit in like she wants to, but she also learns to accept herself, and is accepted by her friends, and eventually becomes proud and unapologetic of her heritage and sexuality.
- This is later used when Karolina begins to date Xavin, who willingly spends time as a girl with her after finding out she is a lesbian. Some Majesdonians (Karolina's alien species) later track her down and, upon hearing that she and Xavin are in a relationship, say that it is "disgusting".. .because a Majesdonian is dating a Skrull.
When Wiccan of the Young Avengers came out to his parents, their response was to say that they always knew and welcome his boyfriend to the family. Ironically, he was trying to reveal that he and his boyfriend were superheroes.

Film

The Blue Rajah (Master of Cutlery!) from Mystery Men is mortified to be caught by his mother rummaging through her cutlery drawers, and desperately tries to brazen it out by daring her to disapprove of his superhero lifestyle. She turns out to be far more supportive and loving than he expected.
One of the jocks in Cursed assumed that this was what the newly-infected werewolf was concealing. As the jock in question had been hiding his own sexual orientation, confusion ensues.
- See also Buffy below.
In X2: X-Men United, Bobby Drake's parents find out that he's a mutant and have pretty much exactly this reaction. Complete with his mother giving him the quote at the top of the page.
- The filmmakers consulted Ian McKellen, the gay man who plays Magneto, for this scene.
  - Which is odd to this troper, since the director himself is gay.
  - True, but McKellen is much older than Bryan Singer and had to deal with it in a time when gays were far less accepted. Odds are he had much more experience of that kind of situation.

Literature

Werewolves are treated this way in Harry Potter. Fenrir Greyback is portrayed as a Does This Remind You Of Anything pedophile rapist.
- Rowling has said that werewolves and Lupin in particular were actually a metaphor for segregation in general, but also for society's negative reactions to the disabled. Lupin's lycanthropy forces him to need many special accommodations just to live day to day, such as a potion he has to take for the rest of his life, or the more elaborate quarantine Hogwarts had to set up for him as a child.
- The movie version of Azkaban is particularly Anvilicious about this. In the book, Lupin has no problem talking about being a werewolf at the end-of-the-book wrapup with Harry, whereas in the movie he hesitates and uses lots of euphemisms that make it sound like he's talking about something else entirely...
Lupin: This time tomorrow, the owls will start arriving. Parents will not want... well, someone like me teaching their children.
Lupin: Besides, people like me are... Well, let's just say that I'm used to it by now.
- He lampshades his heavy use of euphemisms somewhere along the line, saying, "James used to call it my 'furry little problem.' Many of my classmates were under the impression that I owned a very badly behaved rabbit."
- This was likely done on purpose, as David Thewlis, the man who played Lupin, was convinced his character was gay and professed to be disappointed when he married Tonks.
The world of the Mercy Thompson series plays around with this trope. There's a lot of religious opposition, especially toward the fae, but it's quickly demonstrated to be a lot more reasonable than it seems at first glance. Sticking those fae forced out of the closet onto literal reservations, however, certainly fits a version of this trope. On the other hand, there are gay werewolves, who are discriminated against both as they would be in the real world, and by werewolves that have their own discriminatory beliefs on the matter.
- Homophobia among werewolves is partially explained by the near immortality of the species. Many or most are centuries old, born when homosexuality was unacceptable, and as they grow older they find it harder to change with the times. The Columbia Basin pack, which does have a gay member, is explicitly stated to have accepted him in large part because many of the other members were only a few decades old. In addition, werewolves can smell arousal, so having a gay man among many others who are good-looking, straight and short-tempered makes violence near unavoidable. An Alpha may deny a gay werewolf membership not based on his personal homophobia, but because he isn't strong enough to prevent the fights caused by inadvertent flirting.
In the fantasy novel The Weavers of Saramyr, people born with magical powers are called "Aberrant." Veteran Aberrant Asara gives protagonist Kaiku what can only be described as a "coming out of the closet speech", urging her to accept her powers and be proud of them... moments before a big Les Yay Ship Tease moment.
The Dresden Files invokes this trope, as wizards are supposed to maintain secrecy at all times and not reveal to the rest of the world that they exist, lest non-wizards become terrified and kill them. Averted in the case of the series protagonist, who not only puts "HARRY DRESDEN, WIZARD" on his office door and is listed in the Yellow Pages under "Wizards," but also goes on his universe's equivalent of Jerry Springer to talk about magic and promote his business. Twice.
- Amusingly, Harry's association with White Court vampire and his half-brother Thomas Raith has led people to assume he is gay. They tend to have a Not That Theres Anything Wrong With That attitude to it, and when they're prejudiced, Harry has used that to his advantage. And Murphy won't shut up about it, so he's probably never going to live it down.
A mild version of this is in The House Of Night series. In the first book, when Zoey gets the Mark of a vampyre, all she knows is that vampyres often disappear. She then discovers that there is a school for them (the titular "House of Night") and that many celebrities are vampyres. Being a vampyre is treated similar to being gay in this universe. Because of this, her strict Christian stepfather disowns her. Vampyres also have to cover up their Mark in public to avoid being harassed.
In Robert Jordan's Wheel Of Time, male channelers are treated like this... at the very best. Justified, though, as they are doomed to go insane, which will have disastrous effects to anything and anyone in vicinity, and at the end die a horrible death.
Bella pulls this pretty much straight (in wording, at least) on Jacob when confronting him after figuring out that he's a werewolf.
Bella: Could you...well, try to not be a...werewolf?
- In the film (not sure about the book) Jacob responds: "This isn't a lifestyle choice, I was born like this."

Live Action TV

Vampires in True Blood "come out of the coffin" to demand civil rights.
- You can't get more blatant than the opening credits shot of a church sign that says "God Hates Fangs". If you don't know what this refers to, consider yourself lucky.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer pulls this a few times. First and foremost, Joyce's reaction to learning about Buffy and vampires was, literally, "Have you tried...not being the Slayer?" She later describes herself as "marching in the Slayer Pride parade."
- In "Phases," Larry is suspected of being a werewolf, and Xander has a talk with him about having urges and desires he can't control...but it turns out Larry's not a werewolf, he's just gay.
  - Angel then reverses that: Cordelia misreads the signals she's been getting from the new vampire Harmony, and ends up thinking Harmony's a lesbian. She calls Willow to ask "why didn't you tell me?" and the conversation is full of mixed signals. Finally:
Cordelia: Harmony is a vampire? That's why she—oh, my god, I'm so embarrassed! All this time I thought she was a great big lesbo!...Oh, yeah? Really? Well, that's great! Good for you.
The live-action series The Tick had an episode of this trope, centered around Arthur coming out as a superhero to his mom and sister. Tick is referred to as Arthur's "Partner" and "Special friend". This troper likes the scene where the mom and sister, upon first entering the restaurant Arthur and Tick frequent, notice a superhero leaving and ask, "Is this one of those kind of places?"
- Creator Ben Edlund later regretted putting this in people's minds when they made the episode about the relationship between superhero and sidekick, which he described as "very marriage-like" in the commentary.
Deep Space Nine invokes this trope when Odo tries his hardest to convince a found Jem Hadar to pursue interests other than killing or fighting.
- DS 9 also invoked it with respect to Dr. Bashir's genetic enhancement. A character is outed as having a trait that is not only considered revolting and wrong by the general public but is also illegal and can lose the person his military job and even his citizenship, even though he wasn't the one who chose the trait in the first place. That episode read as if it were a metaphor for forced outing of gays. Unfortunately, that creates an Unfortunate Implication with respect to future references to other genetically enhanced characters. And it also turns Dr. Louis Zimmerman into Perez Hilton, which is arguably worse.
Dinosaurs has an episode where Robby suspects that he mights be (GASP) an herbivore! Herbivores are treated the same way in dinosaurs society as gays are, complete with "herbivore bars" and being called "Vego" as a slur.
- Missed Moment Of Awesome there: they lost a perfect chance to use 'fern bar'.
Dexter use this trope. And in that case, when they say 'monster', they mean 'monster'.
Merlin with wizards.
Deconstructed in The League Of Gentlemen's Christmas Special, which dealt with the Unfortunate Implications of equating gay people with bloodsucking vampires.
I am not a vampire! I am just a queen.
Completely inverted in Swedish comedy show Hjälp (Help), whenever resident sissy Benjamin tries to explain to his family that he's just an average guy. When came out to them and told them he was straight, his sister called him revolting, his mother started crying and his father disowned him. Causing Benjamin to meekly tell them that he was only kidding, of course he's really gay.
- Taken to ridiculous extremes in the third season;
  - When he accidentally become a bank robber, his father gave him his old luger that he used to rob the post office with and offered him to come along to Denmark for a hit ("some pesky witness that needs shutting up"). Then there's the family tied up in the bathroom...
  - When he ends up being recruited by some Nazis, his parents start recollecting how they first met at a Nazi rally and how proud they are of him following in their footsteps.
  - When he's forced to convert to Islam (as part of a knife-point marriage), his parents proudly reveal that they are actually part of an Al Qaeda terrorist cell and asks him for help in bombing the local Danish hotdog stand.
A Joel-era episode of Myster Science Theater 3000 equates robots with homosexuality. Tom and Crow both come out as robots.

Manga and Anime

Played For Laughs in Slayers Next when heroes face the fact that a charming prankster they traveled with is millenia-old and extremely powerful Mazoku. Amelia, of course, immediately and passionately exhorted to "become a real human". Even Gourry saw just how grotesque this was.

New Media

After Elton, a gay entertainment site, addresses this trope:
- Here
- And here

Tabletop Games

Much of the World Of Darkness, but especially the Fae/Changelings, since the other supernatural creatures are born or turned from sires or parents, but Changelings may be born to any family, love theater, sex, and the arts, and have a miserable time fitting in with "banal" normal society.
- Those would be the changelings of Changeling: the Dreaming, by the way. Attaching gay implications to the changelings of Changeling: the Lost would be... unfortunate.
  - Also hilarious, since that would mean something to the effect of "I was once abducted by gays, and though I'm not homosexual myself I do have some gay magic because of it."
  - Well hey, depending on how you read the Erlkonig, and what you think happened afterwards...
  - Now that would make for an awesome game! Just imagining what the hell 'gay magic' could possibly be has me in stitches here.
- Another really good one for it is Werewolf, in either old or new World Of Darkness. Although they're technically born as a werewolf (or other Changing Breed/Fera), they don't awaken to their true nature until a dramatic, life-changing event that usually happens no earlier than puberty.
  - Although in that case, lycanthropy seems to be more related to puberty itself, especially considering the whole monthly-cycle connection. (For further exploration of this theme, see Ginger Snaps.)
Psionics in many Dungeons And Dragons campaign settings.
- Traveller (the old SF RPG) balanced psionic characters by making psionics illegal in the Imperium.
And there's Paranoia, of course, where everyone (EVERYONE!) has an unregistered psychic power but having an unregistered psychic power means a death sentence from the Computer...you COULD register your power but that puts you under suspicion. Get your clone warmed up.
- Not to mention everyone also belonging to highly treasonous secret societies.
  - And it being entirely possible to be a secret member of the anti-mutant league while being a secret mutant...

Theater

There's a comedic short play called Jimmy the Antichrist about a boy coming out to his parents as, well, the Antichrist (though he's not as evil as that title would suggest). It's all very Does This Remind You Of Anything, complete with the parents saying "Have you tried not being the Antichrist?" This is lampshaded several times by Jimmy's sister, who keeps asking him whether he's sure he didn't mean to say he was gay.

Web Comics

Played with in Irregular Webcomic.
- And The Rant has a link back here.
  - Also "have you tried not being a Nazi" (about Ervin)
Also played with in a now-defunct super hero webcomic called Queer Nation, where everyone gay got superpowers from radioactive dust given off by a pink comet and was written as X-Men with the subtext changed into text. Oh, and bisexuals got superpowers too, but they only worked half of the time. Asexuals and pansexuals weren't addressed. Transsexuals had powers that were mostly useless until something amazing would happen that would kick them into god-tier. One of the main characters was a male to female transsexual who called herself Miss Thang and started with the ability to manipulate clothes (first just moving them, then morphing them), but it was implied that it would one day extend to complete metamorphic control over all matter.
Used in Darken. A werebear character can suppress the bear inside him by an act of will. But apparently trying to concentrate on not being a bear is hard.

Western Animation

This troper has considered a rewrite of The Ugly Duckling using this trope. See, coot chicks and moorhen chicks look almost identical, right up until their adult feathers start to grow in...
- An HBO kid's series already did it. For further effect, all the adults were voiced by gay and lesbian celebrities.
- I think the original story was written with that as intentional subtext.
  - Considering Andersen, quite possibly. It might also refer to his massive insecurity about his scrawny body.
- Of course the ending relies on the reader agreeing that swans are naturally superior to ducks because they're pretty, which raises all sorts of issues no matter what you interpret the message as...
  - Ducks aren't pretty? Since when?
  - Yes, I believe Hugh Neutron would like a word with you.
  - As would Fakir.
  - It's more that a baby swan is uglier than baby ducks but grows up nicely. No one really said that ducks weren't pretty in the story.