History Main / PeopleZoo

[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]

By and large, the most common form of this trope has a People Zoo that's stocked with humans. However, examples of this trope can also see beings such as intelligent aliens or prehistoric hominds join old familiar ''Homo sapiens'' in the exhibits.

Most scenarios have the zookeepers as either intelligent animals or aliens. In the first case, this typically a sort of RussianReversal -- whereas in real life humans keep animals in cages, a reversed world sees a civilization of animals keep humans behind bars. In cases where AnimalIsTheNewMan, the newly dominant non-human life might view this as an amusingly ironic twist. In the second case, this typically takes the form of very advanced and powerful civilizations happily keeping humanity in exhibits due to viewing them as essentially being animals. This is typically done by either ScaryDogmaticAliens or some form of TheCollector, whose perception of other species as lesser beings is mostly just a form of arrogance or acism, and {{Sufficiently Advanced Alien}}s, which in most regards are legitimately as far above humans as we are above animals.

-->-- '''Creator/ShelSilverstein''', "The People Zoo"

-->''I got grabbed by the elk and the caribou.\\
They tied me up with vine lassoo\\
And whisked me away to Animaloo,\\
Where they locked me up in the People Zoo.''

* ''Literature/Corum'': The only previous contact Corum's family had with a Mabden -- a human -- before the events of the stories was a woman that they kept in a menagerie for fifty years.

* ''ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse'': In "The Billion Dollar Safari", Scrooge [=McDuck=] tries to revitalize the trade at his zoo by posting a reward of $1 billion for a nonexistent animal (a spotted elephant with a square trunk). The public is so eager to see the "crackpot" that would post such a ridiculous sum for such a ridiculous animal that they flock to the zoo to look at Scrooge, who puts himself on display in his own cage.

* ''Falling Up'': Page 80 tells about a human boy who is kidnapped and put into a zoo exhibit. He is always on display and all of the onlookers are animals.

* ''Literature/GiveYourselfGoosebumps'': One ending in the second book, ''Literature/TickTockYoureDead'', gets you stuck in one as the "Couch Potato" exhibit.

* ''Series/TheOrville'': The Calivon keep members of less technologically advanced species in a zoo on their planet, since they consider them to be like animals. Mercer and Grayson become their latest exhibit.
* ''Series/PersonOfInterest'': Team Machine discovers a TownWithADarkSecret in "[[Recap/PersonOfInterestS04E13 M.I.A.]]". Maple was on the verge of bankruptcy when ArtificialIntelligence Samaritan bought up the place and put its own unquestioning stooges in positions of authority. Now things are starting to go wrong, and Finch speculates that Samaritan had created a perfect 'ant farm' for humans, which it is now disrupting in order to learn more about their behavior. There's also a prison in South Africa that Samaritan is using for the same purpose.

*** At the end of "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E25PeopleAreAlikeAllOver People Are Alike All Over]]", the stranded astronaut realizes that the aliens are indeed just like humanity when [[spoiler:he realizes that they trapped him in a GildedCage for zoogoers to gawk at]].
*** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S3E30HocusPocusAndFrisby Hocus-Pocus and Frisby]]", a group of aliens mistakes Frisby's tall tales about his own past for an incredible variety of impressive accomplishments because they have no idea what lying is, and tries to abduct what they think is a remarkable alien specimen for their own zoo.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheNewAdventuresOfSuperman'': In "[[Recap/TheNewAdventuresOfSupermanS1E5 The Robot of Riga]]", aliens kidnap Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane and put them in a cage on their homeworld Riga.

* ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries'': In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeriesS1E15TheEyeOfTheBeholder The Eye of the Beholder]]", the crew discovers a planet that serves as a world-sized zoo kept by the lactrans, a species of superintelligent slug-lige aliens, and are captured and imprisoned in an exhibit alongside the crew of the ship they had come to rescue.

* In ''Manga/{{Gantz}}'', four-eyed alien giants kidnap several humans, stripping them of their clothes and displaying them in a zoo.
* A variant where the "zoo specimen" does it to ''themselves'' is found in ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureDiamondIsUnbreakable''. Toyohiro Kanedaichi is trapped in the PossessiveParadise of an old telephone tower on the edge of Morioh, due to its Stand, Superfly, ''really'' hating it when people try to leave. After his chapter's over, it's revealed the tower has become a tourist attraction, where people come and take pictures with Toyohiro. He doesn't charge money, instead asking for such things as sweets and spices (he can acquire food and water by himself, but he can't get those inside the tower).
* In ''Manga/TerraforMARS'', the cockroach Terraformars kidnap thousands of humans within Tokyo. They're taken to a facility where the Terraformars and, with the aid of the Chinese People's republic and the Newton Clan, conduct breeding experiments on humans to create a Terraformar/human hybrid.

* In ''La Débauche'', an unemployed man puts himself in a cage of a zoo. His reason for doing this are not known [[spoiler:before his death.]]
* In the ''ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse'' story "The Billion Dollar Safari", Scrooge [=McDuck=] tries to revitalize the trade at his zoo by posting a reward of $1 billion for a nonexistent animal (a spotted elephant with a square trunk). The public is so eager to see the "crackpot" that would post such a ridiculous sum for such a ridiculous animal that they flock to the zoo to look at Scrooge, who puts himself on display in his own cage.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'' fanfic ''Fanfic/PatronOfTheArtOfWar'', the art exhibition that Thrawn puts on for his artists not only features Sabine's art but the girl herself. Cuffed and later gagged so the attendees can gawk at her.

* In ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy2014'', the Collector's museum contains a large number of humanoids trapped inside glass cages, including a [[Film/TheAvengers2012 Chitauri]], a [[Film/{{Thor}} Frost Giant]] and [[Film/ThorTheDarkWorld a Dark Elf]], in addition to [[BadBoss a former assistant that he thought did a disappointing job]] and ComicBook/HowardTheDuck.

* In ''Film/TheHungerGamesTheBalladOfSongbirdsAndSnakes'', this is where the tributes for the 10th Annual Hunger Games are stored. It's also where [[spoiler: Snow meets Lucy for the first time.]]

** This is a signature trope of many movies, including the original film and the CGI reboot series.
** In ''Film/RiseOfThePlanetOfTheApes'', after liberating and mutating the inhabitants of an ape sanctuary with an intelligence-boosting virus, Caesar locks up Rodney, a human guard, in one of the cages.
** In ''Film/DawnOfThePlanetOfTheApes'', Koba built one to carry out vengeance against humans for his own time as a prisoner of their scientific experimentation which involved the excision of his eye and many scars on his face and arms.

* The twist ending of the ''Film/TalesFromTheHood3'' segment "The Bunker" reveals that the racist Denton Wilbury is actually a zoo exhibit, in a future where bigotry has been eliminated and people like him are considered an EndangeredSpecies. One of the kids viewing his exhibit ends up asking if there's time to go see "the misogynist exhibit", implying he's not the only one there.

* In "Literature/BreedsThereAMan", Earth is implied to be a laboratory experiment by aliens, with mental controls in place to prevent us from developing interstellar travel. Then humans evolve around the mental blocks...

* ''Literature/SlaughterhouseFive'': The main character gets put into one of these (together with a porn star) by the Tralfamadorians.
* One ending in the second ''Literature/GiveYourselfGoosebumps'' book ''Literature/TickTockYoureDead'' gets you stuck in one as the "Couch Potato" exhibit.

* In the short story "Zoo" by Creator/EdwardDHoch, a spaceship carrying a traveling zoo of aliens lands on Earth as part of its regular stint. Later the aliens are returned to their own planet, where they talk of their safari to see the savage two-legged creatures of Earth. They assure their friends they were perfectly safe, as they were behind protective bars the whole time.

** In the Third Doctor story "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS10E2CarnivalOfMonsters Carnival of Monsters]]", two alien entertainers keep exhibits of exotic creatures from many worlds - including a yacht full of humans - in shrunken and unwitting captivity inside a Miniscope.

** In "The Keeper", the crew of the Jupiter II encounter The Keeper: an alien who travels the galaxy collecting living pairs of interesting or rare animals. His courtly overtures towards the Robinsons belie his true intention -- to add a pair of humans to his incredible menagerie.
** In "A Day at the Zoo", galactic showman Farnum B. wants to exhibit the Robinsons in his zoo.

* ''Franchise/StarTrek'' did this a couple of times. Most notably, the pilot episode for ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'', "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E0TheCage The Cage]]".

* In ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'', the Penguin has a museum featuring several of Gotham's finest criminals, although most of them are either dead or have broken out by the time Batman gets there.
* ''VideoGame/TheLostVikings'': Three Vikings—Erik the Swift, Baleog the Fierce, and Olaf the Stout—get kidnapped by Tomator, emperor of the alien Croutonian empire, for an inter-galactic zoo.
* ''VideoGame/StarControl 2'': Admiral ZEX has one of these, and [[spoiler:wants you to be his latest addition]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'': As of the Heinlein update, Enigmatic Observers Fallen Empire will sometimes ask a younger race they think are not long left for this galaxy (read: just about everyone else) to provide a POP[[note]]a population unit of unspecified size, potentially as large as a billion people[[/note]] for their Preserve. By any account, those in the Preserve are well-treated but the rest of your Empire will be a bit irritated, and the Enigmatic Observers might be a bit disappointed if you refuse.
* ''VideoGame/{{Tropico}}'': In ''Tropico 3'', you can build "authentic Native villages" as a tourist attraction, although the description notes that the people in them are all employees as the natives were all wiped out by European colonialists centuries ago.

%%* In ''Webcomic/{{Drowtales}}'', the humans and orcs are seen as something in-between true intelligent life and animals.%%But are they put in zoos?
* In ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob,'' when Bob, Jean, and Voluptua are abducted by the cone ship, they briefly entertain the idea that they may be zoo specimens, but finally conclude that they are in fact ''pets.''

* Mentioned in the ''WesternAnimation/JohnnyTest'' episode "[=JX5=]: The Final Ending": as Dark Vegan's fleet is on the verge of rendering Earth uninhabitable and he's thwarted Johnny's third attempt to destroy the fleet (activating the SelfDestructMechanism, which Vegan ripped out the switch for), he half-heartedly assures his daughter Jillian that since she likes Johnny, he'll make sure he and his friends are relocated to a zoo on their home planet of Vegandon.

** One episode revolved around this idea with them abducted by the duo themselves at a theme park.
** Another couch gag that parodied the opening to ''WesternAnimation/TheJetsons'' shows that Homer is in a futuristic exhibit, titled "Why Humans Failed", for robots (including [[WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}} Bender]]) to look at.

* WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks: In the episode "[[Recap/StarTrekLowerDecksS4E02IHaveNoBonesYetIMustFlee I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee]]", the Cerritos gets called to retrieve two humans who have been put on display in a menagerie. The away team gets attacked by an adorable yet deadly creature called the [[KillerRabbit Moopsy]] which has escaped its cage. [[spoiler: It turns out the humans realized how profitable the menagerie was and released the Moopsy on purpose in an attempt to kill the owner and take control.]]

* In AncientRome, this was just a normal day at the Colosseum.

* ''WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanet'': In one episode, an alien came to incorporate the Planeteers into a collection of doomed species from across the galaxy. Fitting with the series' theme, he thinks that mankind, treating the Earth as they are, is doomed to extinction.

** ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E3HealerChildrensZooKentuckyRye The Children's Zoo]]", Debbie Cunningham, whose parents Sheila and Martin are constantly fighting and are [[AbusiveParents often emotionally and verbally abusive towards her]], receives an invitation to the Children's Zoo. Her parents take her to the zoo, very reluctantly, only to discover that it is a zoo where bad parents are imprisoned after being brought there by their children. Debbie inspects five pairs of parents in locked rooms before deciding on the two that she wants to become her new parents.

* ''Series/AreYouAfraidOfTheDark'': In "The Tale of the Closet Keepers", some aliens use closets as portals capture kids to put in a zoo.

* ''Series/PersonOfInterest'': Team Machine discovers a TownWithADarkSecret in "MIA". Maple was on the verge of bankruptcy when ArtificialIntelligence Samaritan bought up the place and put its own unquestioning stooges in positions of authority. Now things are starting to go wrong, and Finch speculates that Samaritan had created a perfect 'ant farm' for humans, which it is now disrupting in order to learn more about their behavior. There's also a prison in South Africa that Samaritan is using for the same purpose.

* ''Franchise/StarTrek'' did this a couple of times. Most notably, the pilot episode for ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': "The Cage/The Menagerie"

*** At the end of "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E25PeopleAreAlikeAllOver People Are Alike All Over]]", the stranded astronaut realizes that the aliens are indeed just like humanity when [[spoiler:he realizes that they trapped him in a GildedCage for zoogoers to gawk at]].
*** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E95HocusPocusAndFrisby Hocus-Pocus and Frisby]]", a group of aliens mistakes Frisby's tall tales about his own past for an incredible variety of impressive accomplishments because they have no idea what lying is, and tries to abduct what they think is a remarkable alien specimen for their own zoo.

* Many zoos in Europe and America had "authentic Negro villages" built in them during the 19th century, with some staying open as late as the mid-20th century. The people in them were usually at least nominally volunteers, but they were paid poorly and (needless to say) it was quite a humiliating practice.