Ignored Raised Hand

Principal Victoria: Ooookay students [...] we need one of you to lead the class and review for tomorrow's quiz.
Cartman: [raises his hand] Oh! Me me, me. Me! Me me! Me! Right here! Right here, right here.
Principal Victoria: Uhh, who—who else would like to be teacher for the day? Anybody else?

— South Park, "Eek, A Penis!"

Aaron has an important question or proposition to ask of people, so he brings it up to everyone around him. Unfortunately, almost no one wants to cooperate. Better yet, the only willing to do so is Barry, who Aaron just so happens to dislike with a passion or deem as worthless, so he either pretends that Barry hasn't said anything at all or outright asks if anyone else will reply. Sometimes, Aaron will have no choice but to acknowledge Barry since he's the only one who even cares about what Aaron has to do or say.

Often used to show the degree of just how much a character can't tolerate another, or how much of a Butt-Monkey the character complying is.

Compare and contrast with Got Volunteered, when someone who doesn't request to do something gets forced to anyway, and Not Now, Kiddo, when a younger or less mature character who has something important to say is dismissed by an older character (though the two can overlap). Not to confuse with Hands Go Down or High-Five Left Hanging.

---

Examples

Fan Works

• In Discworld fic Gap Year Adventures, a recent graduate from the Assassins' Guild School returns Home and is rewarded with conscription into her nation's Army. As her recruit instructors learn exactly which School she attended for seven years, and after one unwary instructor in combat skills is taken away on a stretcher, training NCO's looking for volunteers in unarmed combat resolutely ignore her and always pick somebody else, however enthusiastically she raises her arm.

Film - Animation

• A Bug's Life: To save the ant queen from the grasshoppers, Manny makes her the volunteer of his magic act. When he asks for volunteers as a formality, Molt enthusiastically asks to be picked, even trying to communicate telepathically ("I'm asking you with my brain!").
• In Atlantis: The Lost Empire, the crew needs someone to begin making relations with the Atlantean people, starting with Kida. Obviously, they're looking to make Milo their diplomat, although that doesn't stop Mole from trying to volunteer.
  Helga: Someone needs to talk to that girl.
  Mole: I will go!
  Vinny: Someone with good people skills.
  Mole: I will do it!
  Dr. Sweet: Someone who won't scare her away.
  Mole: I volunteer!
  Mrs. Packard: Someone who can speak the language.
  Mole: For the good of the mission, I will go!
  Rourke: (to Milo, who hasn't been paying attention) Good man, Thatch. Thanks for volunteering.
  Mole: [breaks down sobbing]
• Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa: After assigning a large troop of chimps enlisted by Mason and Phil into three groups to help rebuild the crashed plane, Skipper asks the troop if they follow. Mason raises his paw after a brief pause, which is immediately disregarded by Skipper as he has the troop get to work.
• Minions: When Kevin is about to embark on an adventure to find the perfect master and asks for companions, only Bob raises his hand to go. Thinking Bob is to weak for the job, Kevin dismisses Bob at first, but eventually bites and lets him join since no one else wants to (the only other one going being Stuart, who Got Volunteered while dozing off.)
• Shrek: Shrek is informed that the Duloc fairytale rejects were forced into his swamp by Lord Farquaad.
  Shrek: Who knows where this Farquaad guy is?
  (everyone remains silent)
  Donkey: Ooh I do. I know where he is!
  Shrek: Does anyone else know where to find him?
  (more silence)
  (Baby Bear raises hand, but is put down by Papa Bear)
  (Big Bad Wolf and some Warlock point at each other)
  Donkey: ME! ME! Oh, oh pick me!
  Shrek: *sigh* Alright, FINE.

Film - Live-Action

• Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan: Major Harry Smith is assigned to relieve the undermanned Bravo Company in the Long Tan rubber plantation where the climactic battle will take place. He gives a brutally short briefing explaining how bad the position is and how likely it is to encounter the enemy and finishes with "Any questions?" Several of his platoon leaders raise their hands, but the Major simply walks off, ignoring them.
• Election: After teacher Jim McCallister has his life destroyed by picking on his overachieving, bossy student (and Academic Alpha Bitch) Tracy Flick, he moves to New York and managed to rebuild a very meager existence (although he keeps saying in narration that he's okay with it, almost to the point of Blatant Lies). The very last scene of the epilogue is Jim asking a question to a group of students visiting the museum he works at and one of the students raising her arm, but having the exact same visible attitude as Flick, Jim ignores her and keeps asking the rest of the group if they know the answer.
• Godmothered: Eleanor raises her hand, but Moira doesn't want to call on Eleanor this time because Eleanor raises her hand too much, so Moira pretends that no one is raising their hand.

Literature

• In One Hundred Years Ahead, an Alice, Girl from the Future novel, model student Mila Rutkevich always raises her hand at lessons if whoever's currently answering has difficulties, but teachers ask her only as a last resort, since they want to give others a chance.
• Harry Potter:
  • A frequent occurrence in Potions classes is Hermione raising her hand to answer questions and Professor Snape ignoring her. Harry even gets points deducted in his first Potions class for pointing it out.
  • Dolores Jane Umbridge happily employs this during her tenure as a teacher. She finds it difficult to counteract Hermione's vast array of knowledge, and so she allows her to make one statement or raise one question, then promptly turns her back on Hermione and pretends to not notice her raised hand.
• Miss Susan in Thief of Time tries to give other kids in her class a chance to answer, despite the fact Vincent's hand sometimes breaks the sound barrier going up, as he's so keen to demonstrate his knowledge. (She has privately nominated him Most Likely To Be Murdered By His Future Wife.) She then throws a philosophical question rather than a factual one at the class, and Vincent's hand is halfway up before he realises he doesn't even understand the question.

Live-Action TV

• Awkward.: After Jake catches Jenna kissing Matty, he is unwilling to deal with either of them. So, when their school does their annual "wheel of pep" at lunch and he's in charge, he desperately tries to pick any girl besides Jenna, who is raising her hand. Unfortunately, Lyssa decides to call Jenna up, ruining his effort to keep his distance.
• Full House: In "Wrong Way Tanner", Joey becomes the new coach for Michelle's soccer team and asks for questions from them when having a meeting. Aaron tries to asks one, prompting Joey to continue asking; Aaron goes on to ask anyway.

Western Animation

• The Back at the Barnyard episode "Otis' Mom" has Bessie under the belief that she is ... Otis' Mom, and believing she needs a father figure to help her out with Otis, she asks the male Barnyard animals if any of them are willing to be her husband. Cue everyone breaking, except Pip.
  Pip: ME! ME! ME!
  Bessie: Does anybody else want to be my husband?
• In The Fairly Oddparents, Trixie Tang, the most popular girl in school, asks if there is anyone else missing an invitation for her birthday party. Timmy and his friend raise their hands, but Trixie rips the remaining invitations saying there is no one missing.
• In the Hey Arnold! episode "New Bully on the Block", Bullies Ludwig and Wolfgang make the 4th Graders play football against each other. Curly ends up on Ludwig's team and continually requests to have the ball passed to him in a play, only for Ludwig to tell him to shut up and literally push him aside each time. Eventually, Ludwig caves in and Curly is given a chance to take the ball when the team is ahead far into the game.
• In the Kaeloo episode "Once Upon a Time", Kaeloo is telling a bedtime story but gives up halfway through and asks for someone else to take over. The only person who wants to is Stumpy, and Kaeloo exasperatedly asks "Nobody?"
• The Loud House episode "Spell it Out" centers around Lucy's siblings ignoring her. One instance of such is when she raises her hand when asked who wants the last piece of pie, but Lola takes it and actually says, "I can't believe no one else wanted it."
• In the My Life as a Teenage Robot episode, "I Was a Preschool Dropout", Jenny is held back to kindergarten when Vice Principal Ransenski finds out that she is technically only five years old. To prove to the teacher, Ms. Binky, that she is advanced enough to be qualified as a teenager, Jenny tries raising her hand to answer questions on what words start with a certain letter. However, Ms. Binky keeps calling on other students. When one of them, Gerald, struggles to think of a word that starts with "O", Jenny loses her patience, lists a bunch of "O" words, and insults Gerald, getting her in trouble with Ms. Binky.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "Baby Cakes", Mr. and Mrs. Cake consult the Mane Six sans Pinkie in search of someone to babysit their twins Pound and Pumpkin. Pinkie is repeatedly offering to do the job in the background while they ignore her, and when all five of the others have said no, they cave and let Pinkie babysit.
• In the Rupert episode "Rupert and the Great Mephisto," the eponymous stage magician asks for a volunteer "brave enough" to be hypnotized. Fearless adventurer Rupert is standing on the bench waving both hands in the air, but Mephisto insists on using the obviously disinterested Bill.
  Bill: Me?! Rupert's the one with his hand up!
• The Simpsons: In "The Last Temptation of Homer", Mrs. Krabappel gets back at Bart for his latest prank by announcing that she'll pick him first to answer every single one of her questions for the rest of the school year. As a result, this trope comes into play for Martin Prince.
• South Park:
  • At the beginning of "Eek, a Penis", Mrs. Garrison starts having an identity crisis while teaching and runs out of class. Principal Victoria asks one of the students to fill in as a sub, with only Eric Cartman raising his hand. Principal Victoria rather understandably tries to scout out another student, but Cartman remains the only willing volunteer, so unfortunately she has no choice but to enlist him.
  • In the Season 19 episode "Where My Country Gone?", inspired by his anger towards all the Canadians moving into America, Mr. Garrison asks the class, which now has Canadian kids in it, how the Roman Empire "fell to shit." All the Canadian kids raise their hands, which causes Mr. Garrison to say "someone who matters", which only makes them more eager to answer until he breaks down and asks one of them, growing angry and telling the kid to speak English when they answer the question in their own accent.

Real Life

• Teachers can and will do this to very good pupils in favor of getting other students more involved.

---