I'm Going to Hell for This - Television Tropes & Idioms

"All right, then, I'll GO to hell."

—Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

A Stock Phrase used to lampshade the inherent immorality or tastelessness of an action, a statement, or a joke. The action itself does not even need to be something that will certainly send you straight to Hell. Draw on the Pope's face in sharpie? "I'm going to hell for this". Pull extensive and hysterical pranks on a cripple (such as pushing them down the stairs, wheelchair and all)? "I'm going to hell for this." Ignore the "Keep off the grass" sign? You guessed it.

Compare "See You in Hell" where a character tells ANOTHER character they're going to Hell.

Examples:

open/close all folders

Anime and Manga

In the English dub of One Piece, Nami manipulates Zoro into catching bounties to pay her back the money she gave him (even though he didn't spend it and gave it right back).
Nami: Come on, can't you keep one little promise? *Zoro freezes* Now do as I say and I'll consider calling us even.
Zoro: *angrily, through his teeth* Someday, you're gonna die a horrible death.
Nami: *smirk* Oh, yes. And I'm sure I'll go straight to hell.

Comic Books

In an issue of the erotic comic Skin Tight, the protagonist says this just before having sex with his 18 year sisters (who are identical twins).

Fan Fiction

In Kyon: Big Damn Hero, Kyon keeps telling himself he's going to go to a very special hell when he does things he realize go beyond friendship with Haruhi, Yuki, Mikuru and Tsuruya. Later events (like him being engaged to Tsuruya and the reaction he expects from Haruhi) makes him wonder if he's already in it.
The Special Hell is often invoked in any Firefly fanfic shipping Jayne or Mal with River.

Film

The opening scene of Pathology (consisting of some doctors making corpses 'talk' to each other) ends on this line.
In the movie Hamlet 2, the plot surrounds a semi-desperate high school drama director creating a Grease-esque musical surrounding a "Sexy Jesus" (who is to be played by him). At one point, one Hispanic cast member says to his friend in Spanish, "We're going to hell for this play."
In the film December Boys, a small group of orphan friends (sans one) are sneaking peaks at a Playboy type magazine in the middle of the night. The odd devout boy of the group says to them seriously, "You realize you're going to hell", to which one cheekily replies, "Really?", then holds up the centerfold to him. "At least I'll have company."
True Lies has Gib saying "I'm gonna go to hell" as he's sending Helen on her "mission"
The movie Good Morning Vietnam has Robin Williams impersonating a number of celebrity voices. Immediately after impersonating Lyndon Johnson (and making less than polite comments about the first daughters), he switches to another character (Gomer Pyle), and shouts, "Oh, you're going straight to hell for that one!"
Bill Sykes has this to say in Oliver!:
Once bad, what's the good of turning?
In Hell, I'll be there a-burning
Meanwhile, think of what I'm earning
all on account of my name.

Literature

A non-comedic example takes place in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, when Huck decides to go rescue Jim. Huck is told that by going, he'll damn his soul to Hell. Huck responds with what some call the greatest phrase in American literature: "All right, then, I'll GO to Hell!"
- What makes this so awesome is that Huck honestly believes he will go to Hell for it, but does it anyway.

Live Action TV

In Firefly, Mal is warned to not take advantage of his Accidental Marriage to Saffron, who at the time is believed to be just an innocent farmgirl.
Shepherd Book: If you take sexual advantage of her, you're going to burn in a very special level of hell. A level they reserve for child molesters and people who talk at the theater.
- And when Saffron seduces Mal:
Mal: Oh, I'm going to the special hell.
- Later, when Shepherd Book finds out....
Shepherd Book: How very... special.
In an episode of Veronica Mars, where she installs a hidden camera inside a confessional, she mutters, "Yep, definitely going to hell."
In Fourth Season finale of Doctor Who, Martha Jones is told "You are going straight to hell" (in German), as she gets ready to prime the Osterhagen Key.
- Also a rare example where this is Played for Drama
Friends: In response to a prank on Monica, Rachel told Ross, "I hope it's still funny when you're in Hell!" Monica accidentally banged Ross's son Ben's head and he pretended that the injury gave Ben brain damage, exemplified by forgetting letters and numbers or messed up limb movements. Monica was devastated as Ben was her darling nephew.
A Running Gag on Conan O' Brien is after he tells a joke of supposed bad taste, he breaks into a gospel like song that goes, "I'm gonna go to hell when I die..." When the audience starts clapping along, he usually calls them out on it; "What a horrible thing to do!"
Shortly after Dean of Supernatural has returned from Hell, he spends some time in the past and comments on how attractive his mother was as a teenager. Then he adds, "I'm going to Hell. Again."
In Desperate Housewives, Gabrielle was caught illegally using the newly blind Carlos' handicap sign by two men in wheelchairs. While one of them goes to get security, the other one attempts to keep her out of her car. Her response is to get behind him and shove him into the middle of the parking lot. She then says:
It's official. I'm going to hell.
In Pushing Daisies Ned brought a dead nun back to life to ask her who killed her. She tried to flee, and so ended up forcibly grabbing her to kill her again before the time limit was up. Afterwards, he commented "we are so going to Hell".
A large part of comedian Josh Blue's routine when he was on Last Comic Standing consisted of jokes about his difficulties with cerebral palsy. After a few of those went over well, he yelled at the audience, "You're all going to hell for laughing at me!"
A variation in The West Wing: at the Republican National Convention, the vice-presidential candidate Ray Sullivan is making a speech filled with "comedic" dog-whistles about President Bartlet's multiple sclerosis ("the body politic is ailing", "business is paralysed", the US is "just a shadow of its former strength"...) — Josh and Donna watch on TV, outraged but calm. Then Ray Sullivan refers to something as "so clogged with complications, it's positively sclerotic", at which point Josh loses it and shouts "You're going to hell!" at the TV — very loudly, in front of a lot of people.
From NCIS, when the victim and suspect had apparently met on the same "dating" website:
Abby: Care to guess what their fetish was, Kate?
Kate: Oh. No, I'm going to hell just listening to all of this!
In the Leverage episode The Miracle Job, after Nate suggests that they steal the church, Hardison replies "oh, we all going to hell!"
Family Feud host Steve Harvey says this a lot whenever a contestant gives a particularly off-the-wall answer. This YouTube clip shows his reaction to the question "Name something that gets passed around" with the answer "A joint," and Harvey's unbelief when the answer actually does get survey responses. "This is when you know we're going to hell."
Inverted in Scrubs. Elliot stops using the word "ass", instead replacing it with "kaboodle" in hopes that it will keep her out of hell since she is already has "loose morals and is living in sin".
In the fourth series finale of Misfits, Kavorka Man Rudy goes to confession, and the priest tells him that he (Rudy) is going to burn in hell, presumably referring to the case of Rudy failing to do his assigned penance.

Music

Stephen Lynch's completely tasteless (yet oh-so-hilarious) song "Special Olympics" actually includes a statement to this effect in the lyrics, and he usually mentions a few extra times whenever performing it live.
This Hed PE song features the line.
The Insane Clown Posse song "To Catch a Predator" has this as part of the chorus (though "burn" might also refer to the electric chair):
I'm probably going to burn for this
Ain't no lesson to learn from this
Ain't nothing I'm-a earn
But it sure is fun (to catch a predator)
NoFX has a song actually titled "I Am Going To Hell For This One." It's about Jesus coming back, claiming royalties for his use in popular media, then living a drug-fueled orgy of Earthly pleasure while condemning Christians for their self-denial and use of fear and moral arrogance rather than love. Hence the title.
"I may be going to hell in a bucket, baby, but at least I'm enjoying the ride".
"I'm going to hell (he's going to hell), in a handbasket (in a handbasket), to Bohemian Rhapsody...

New Media

At the end of Doug Walker's "Aristocrats" video, there is an outtake of him saying these exact words.
- In episode 43, Ask That Guy explains possible Christmas themed forms of suicide, culminating in him suggesting that one could be sodomized by a reindeer. At the very end of his response, he utters the magic phrase.
These exact words are used in a dramatic sense in this page of a collaborative improvisational comic. (Context: The character uttering these words has just doomed an orbital prison to burn up in the atmosphere.)
A running joke in the Fark.com community is to utter this after making or laughing at a particularly tasteless joke. It has become ubiquitous enough that most people don't even bother to say it, just "One ticket, please" or request a window seat. At least one commenter has requested the "bitch seat" (sitting between two other passengers), reasoning that on any plane or bus to hell, every seat is a bitch seat.

Newspaper Comics

Dilbert says this to Wally after Wally tells the boss that the proper way to use a pager is to clip it to his ear.
Dilbert: You're going to hell.
Said by Alice in a later strip when she, via cell phone, intentionally causes their Pointy-Haired Boss to have have a massive car crash on the highway, just so that he'd avoid talking to her.
In The Boondocks, Riley steals an old woman's groceries, which the Freemans use to have Thanksgiving dinner, with only Huey realizing that they were stolen. Soon after Thanksgiving, the old woman appears and asks Grandpa, who is eating a ham sandwich made from her groceries, about Riley, who vanished with her groceries (out of concern, rather than suspicion). Grandpa, realizing what has happened, steps away, and comments "I'm going to hell for this ham sandwich, aren't I?" Huey responds that it's between him and his god, but suggests he give up pork.
In one Bloom County story, the characters start selling hair tonic for five cents. After it is outlawed by the government, a customer offers Opus $50 grand for a bottle of it, and he accepts it. He asks Milo, "I'm going to Hell for this, aren't I?"

Stand Up Comedy

After an extended impression of Jesus-As-Twilight-Years-Elvis (with him asking for cheeseburgers and oral sex from Mary Magdalene, while noting that he has a colostomy bag that needs emptying and he just voided his bowels), Denis Leary muses:
I'm goin' to hell for that bit...and yer all comin' with me! And don't try and get out of it, either — 'But we didn't laugh at that bit, Jesus! Pleeeease?' 'Shut up, get on the bus with Leary and Scorsese; you're going right ta fuckin' hell!'
Comedian/Ventriloquist Jeff Dunham once did a routine about the oddity of having a Sign Language Interpreter present at a Ventriloquist show (and deaf people attending such a show). He likened it to blind people attending a David Copperfield show. At the end of his routine, he says (through his dummy), "We're going to hell for that."
- That's not the worst of it. He explained how he cheerfully proceeded to mess with them by saying a string of random words, followed by saying nothing at all while miming energetic speech and laughter. The poor interpreter had to follow along while the deaf people were left wondering what the heck was going on. Then again, they were already in Hell, a.k.a. Santa Ana...
Comedian Dane Cook has used a variation on this. "I'm going to hell for that one. And you laughed, so you're coming with me... I'm doing two shows there Friday and Saturday."
Variation by Jimmy Carr—After one cheap shot at Christianity, he remarked "That seems to have split the room into two groups - one group thought that was hilarious, and the other is going to heaven."
Eddie Izzard's historical material often includes Biblical events. After the audience laughs at the end of one bit, he bursts into a song of "Blas~feh~meeee, blas~feh~youuuuuu, blas~feh~every~body~in~the~roooooom..!"

Video Games

Borderlands 2: "Hyperion customers need not worry about the afterlife! Hell is reserved for pedophiles and people who buy Jakobs Munitions"
In a meta example, many players of Assassins Creed II said this when they realized that the Final Boss was Pope Alexander VI, and that the Final Battle is tantamount to a bare-knuckle fistfight with the man himself inside the Vatican, in the middle of High Mass. However, it's historical fact that Alexander was a horrible person, so hopefully God will give all us gamers a mulligan on this one.
There is one Flash game where Simon Belmont faces off against Jesus Christ, with the latter eventually being killed by God. The makers noted in the credits that a lot of people said they're going to hell for this.
We've already packed our bags.
"Isaac...we're all gonna burn for what we did to you."
In Angels2200, Kid is looking for someone to stay the night with, distraught over Hammer reprimanding her for not taking a shot at an enemy fighter and thus putting Bubblegum's life in danger. After being turned down by Hammer, she goes to Whiskey, who lies and says that she's letting one of the Green Giant pilots (who lost one of their squadmates in the battle) stay with her. Kid leaves and Whiskey says this as it is revealed that Loser is the one who's sleeping over.

Webcomics

VG Cats, re: Video Game Cruelty Potential:
Leo: Do you think Sims feel pain?
Aeris: You're a monster and you're going straight to hell.
Ansem Retort has the new show Throwing darts at fat people.
Zexion: We're so going to hell for this.
Axel: I don't even care any more.
In Flintlockes Guide To Azeroth, the party's priest utters the phrase after attempting to resurrect the title character's mount and instead turning it into a hideous undead ram.
Schweitzer: Scratch that, first I'm getting a drink. And then? Hell.
The author's note for Issue 5, Page 5 of Asperchu is simply "I'm going to hell for this." Said page uses pictures of Ground Zero to represent a collapsed building, while the next page ("Straight to the depths of Tartarus") explains that the comic's villain deliberately crashed his plane to destroy the structure.
Jon says this in Errant Story, when taking on a mission from the Wraiths to assassinate a priest.
In Horndog, Tommy tells Bob this.
In a rare, non-comedic example, Shelly of Wapsi Square says that there is a special place in hell reserved for her as she prepares to stab her best friend. Shown here, but beware, for here there be spoilers.
In Concession, Kelly is asked by a theatre-goer if she's seen World Trade Centre. She says no, and she doesn't plan to, and the customer gets angry, saying "I bet you'd watch it if there were snakes on that plane!" Cue two panels of internal shots of the planes crashing into the Towers, while filled with snakes, and then a cut to the artist with his sidekick/muse yelling "You're going to Hell!"
In Exterminatus Now, Virus states this, as he's part of the party responsible for slashing an angel with a Laser Blade. Seen here.
This Theater Hopper strip, when Tom discovers that child actress Michelle Trachtenberg has grown up.

Web Original

Crops up (kinda) in a Let's Play of New Super Mario Bros Wii by the Freelance Astronauts. pipes!, as Luigi, gained control of a moving platform towards the end of a stage in level 8. When he loses control of said platform and can't change course in time, he decided to play it up, and send the platform at full speed into a lava trap, screaming, "TO HELL!!!" at the top of his lungs, causing a Total Party Kill.
- A more definite example appears in their Let's Play of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask when Maxwell equips the Stone Mask to circumvent the stealth in the Gerudo Fortress. Said mask had already been called "downsy", so they started talking like Link as a person with Down's syndrome. Once inside the fortress (after the cutscene to show it off ended):
Ferr: We are going to hell.
- Also, for the same game, they play "I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" over the last minute before the moon crashes*
  where Maxwell had gotten the Sun's Mask but deliberately hadn't given the pendant to Anju
  , as well as the cinematic where it happens. As the moon is crushing the clock tower:
Seiferguy(?): Aaaand we're all going to hell.
The Angry Video Game Nerd regularly reviews video games based on The Bible for his Christmas specials. One of said games is the complete text of the King James Bible on a Game Boy, including a search function. The Nerd proceeds to look up the word "ass", only to find a bunch of passages referring to donkeys and laughs at how they sound today, such as "seated upon an ass" or "dumb ass". His response is "Heh heh...I'm going to hell."
When Linkara reviewed a Mr. T comic book and came across the line "It's a crack baby, foo'!" he expressed a fear of going to hell for laughing at it.

Western Animation

In Daria, from "A Tree Grows in Lawndale", Kevin accidentally sprains his knee and kills the Tommy Sherman Memorial Tree in a motorcycle accident. Brittany and the cheerleaders become inexplicably convinced that Tommy Sherman's ghost is haunting the girl's bathroom because of this. Hence, this moment:
Brittany: Daria, Jane, would you like to contribute to the Tommy Sherman Memorial Tree Fund? We're hoping to get his spirit out of the girl's room.
Daria: You know, if you could just get one of those crutches away from Kevin, you could plant one of them instead. That's sure to appease Tommy's restless bathroom spirit.
Brittany: You're right! *walks away*
Jane: You know you're going to hell.
Daria: Anything that gets me out of Lawndale.
- Another episode has Quinn trying to convince people to donate money for her plastic surgery. When she tries to convince a goth girl that her beauty will be something everyone can share, the girl replies "and you're not even the least bit afraid that there may be a Hell?"
In a sketch on Robot Chicken, Daredevil teams up with Stevie Wonder against Marlee Matlin and Helen Keller in a game show. The first round involves "what sound is this?" and the second involves "name this item". Unfortunately, Helen fails and has to do the physical challenge. The directing staff of that episode all say they're going to hell in the commentary.
Played straight in one episode of Family Guy where Tom Tucker and Diane Simmons make jabs at the people taking part in the Special Peoples' Games (i.e., the Special Olympics with the serial numbers filed off) and note that they are going to go to hell by the end of the day.

Real Life

Hold down F11◊
This video is a one way ticket to hell. It also proves that Yakity Sax can make ANYTHING funny.
This◊ Demotivational.
Tarol Hunt,creator of Goblins did an experiment where he listens to nothing but Justin Bieber. This trope was his response to drowning out Pink Floyd.
Former CIA official James Angleton made a remark in an interview not long before his death to this effect.
Now We Are All Sons-of-Bitches