Silly Rabbit Idealism Is For Kids - Television Tropes & Idioms

When a character (primarily in dramas) is asked to go beyond their job and help with "a cause", the character sometimes refuses, and afterwards the other person asks, "What's happened to you?" or "Since when did you stop caring?" the answer sometimes comes down to the character saying, "I grew up," implying that the character went from idealist to embittered cynic overnight, or over a period of time. It's also often used by the Anti Hero to sneer at the idealistic methods and beliefs of The Cape and his ilk; such naive and childish wishful thinking has no place in the grown-up, cynical world that the Anti Hero lives in. Alternatively, a Retired Badass might have genuinely gotten too old or set in retirement to do whatever is being asked of them.

Considering that many shows and media on the idealistic end of the Sliding Scale Of Idealism Versus Cynicism are primarily targeted towards children and teenagers, there can often be a tendency, especially among more cynical people, to think of idealism as childish or naive, something to outgrow.

Sometimes the result of the character crossing the Morale Event Horizon.

Could also overlap with Obstructive Bureaucrat, and Noble Bigot With A Badge. Subtrope of Jade Colored Glasses.

Examples:

Jackie, the ex-wife of Detective Mercer from the film The Brave One. Detective Mercer asks Jackie for help and she replies, "I can't help. Besides, I don't do 'pro bono.'" When Mercer asks why, she responds, "I grew up."
Music example, slightly inverted: In his song "My Back Pages", Bob Dylan describes his angry-young-man cynicism of a few years earlier, and its gradual evolution into pragmatism, with the memorable (and confusing) chorus "I was so much older then / I'm younger than that now."
Similarly, Billy Joel in "Angry Young Man":
I believe I've passed the age
Of consciousness and righteous rage
I found that just surviving
Was a noble fight...
- Alternately, The Jam in "Burning Sky", though that was meant to be from the viewpoint of a character who'd embraced the capitalist system.
Subverted in a It's Walky strip, in which Anti Hero Knight Templar Sal, who is attempting to destroy every alien abductee in the United States (and, by extension, the entire continent itself) tells Joyce, the quirky, innocent goofy girl trying to stop her, that she's just a naive, deluded little girl. Joyce shoots back that Sal is the 'little girl'; Joyce has been through as many difficult and painful moments in her life as Sal has, but has matured enough to be able to cope with them without letting them poison her essential goodness and optimism, whereas Sal's reaction is the world-destroying equivalent of a childish attention-seeking temper tantrum.
When Sasha Monroe from Third Watch points out Tyrone Davis Jr's shady police tactics and how it contributes to innocent black men going to jail, he put his hand up to her face and says "Don't preach to me."
- Interestingly enough, Ty refused to believe his father was corrupt, yet he's going down the same slippery slope.
In DC Comics, Superman once battled the Elite (a pastiche of The Authority) a pack of super-anti-heroes who routinely killed. It was the Elite's point-of-view that Superman's boy-scout kid-gloves morality was a weakness, and that defeating evil required being just as bad. During their final face-off, Superman appeared to be going all-out, slaughtering his way through the Elite on live TV. But it was a fake-out - he was merely knocking them out in creative ways, trying to illustrate how terrifying suoperpowered killers can be. Manchester Black, the leader of the Elite, maintained that Superman's idealism was nothing but a facade until his dying day. (When Black realized that Superman honestly and sincerely believed and lived up to his ideals, it was more than Black could take and committed suicide.)
Partially due to his Heroic BSOD in Season 3, Judai in Yu-Gi-Oh GX developed a Stop Having Fun Guys mentality towards Duel Monsters during his journey into adulthood between Seasons 3 and 4, effectively losing the optimism that he had for two and a half seasons.
- Oddly enough, before that he was big on 'It's a game, have fun!' Pretty big turn around.
- In the final episode Judai duels Yugi and regains his passion for dueling.
In Live A Live, the former hero Hash has this attitude; he despises people in general for forgetting him after he saved the day, and considers idealistic heroes like Oersted to be stupid. He recants his position at the end, though, and tells Oersted to keep fighting so long as any one person believes in him. But when the world curbstomps Oersted's idealism too, Oersted decides to get revenge..
In Deus Ex, two semi-major supporting characters are idealistic teenage members of La Resistance helping you battle the Ancient Conspiracy. By Deus Ex 2, those two characters have grown up and become the cold-blooded, manipulative dictators of Earth and the new leaders of the Ancient Conspiracy, claiming that they did what they had to do to preserve human society.
- Granted this was caused due to their beloved savior failing to merge successfully with the AI and causing a subsequent apocalypse that wiped out all communications and caused a Dark Age amongst humanity.
Grandad from The Boondocks shows heavy shades of this.
- Likewise Huey suffers from a case of an inversion in his case as he never smiles (save one case). Shows a heavy case of cynicism towards society while Riley is too ignorant to care. In the book he had a Cesar who was similar to Huey but lacks his extremely jaded ideas.
Tess Mercer from Smallville gives Oliver Queen the whole I grew Up line.
- Although this can be described as Silly Rabbit Romance Is For Kids.
In the Lou Diamond Phillips film Extreme Justice, alot of the Powers That Be appear to be this way when dealing with Knight Templar cops. Mostly due to the fact they think the ends justify the means, and the lower level power's that be are largely useless due to being in fear of losing their jobs and pensions. And Lou Diamond Phillips' character is mostly seen as naive by his co-workers because he's trying to expose the corruption that people seem to passively aggressively support..

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