Stab the Picture

So someone really hates a person very much? Why not have them damage a picture? Stab The Picture is when someone damages a picture of someone, which is usually used to symbolise that they do not like the person at all and would like to see them suffer. This is usually accomplished by either throwing a knife at it, shooting at it, or otherwise damaging it. If Hollywood Voodoo works In-Universe, the stabbing can have a negative effect on the person in the photograph. They may also be using the opportunity to practice attacking the person by using the picture as a trial run. In some cases, if the damage that the picture receives covers up something important, then it can serve as a Plot-Based Photograph Obfuscation, mainly used to hide up just who exactly this person hates.

Compare Removed from the Picture, where someone scratches out images of somebody (usually an ex) from photographs because they hate or want to forget the past, Map Stabbing, Smash the Symbol, Paper Destruction of Anger, Stab the Sky, and Shoot the Television. Sister trope to Dartboard of Hate, Symbolically Broken Object, and Mustache Vandalism. If they're destroying the picture because it is of a past person they used to be friends with, then it can overlap with Let the Past Burn. And if attacking the picture actually harms the person in it, it overlaps with Voodoo Doll.

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Examples

Advertising

• In the first part of a two-part commercial for Energizer batteries, the Supervolt Battery Company plots to destroy the Energizer Bunny due to the declining sales of Supervolt batteries and a failed attempt to create their own mascot, the Supervolt Weasel. The first assassin the company hires is Ernst Blofeld, who walks into the building and fires a laser from his cane at a picture of the Energizer Bunny.

Anime & Manga

• During the "Search Natsumi" arc of Date A Live, Origami stabs the photographs Natsumi sent to Shido on the chance that she could be hiding in one of them. While she isn't, this does help Shido figure out who Natsumi replaced.
• Hajime no Ippo: Marcus Rosario takes this to the next level; He punches the picture of his opponent, Ryo Mashiba, and even guns it down.
• At the very start of Maria no Danzai, Maria is shown calmly cutting a picture of her son's bullies with a kitchen knife.
• One Piece: When Imu is first introduced, they're shown with destroyed pictures of Luffy, Blackbeard, and Shirahoshi, though Vivi's picture is notably left untouched.
• One Story Arc of Ranma ½ is kick-started with Kuno using a massive picture of Ranma, whom he hates, for his kendo practice, shedding said picture into smithereens as the result. Unfortunately for him, the picture belongs to his sister Kodachi, who's an Abhorrent Admirer to Ranma, and so Sibling Rivalry takes place for the rest of said Story Arc.

Fan Works

• In the Star Trek: Enterprise fanfic Hoshi's Birthday Surprise, Hoshi finds Malcolm attractive but is also mad at him. As such, she keeps a photo of him in his undies, but stabs it.
• In the Discworld fic Strandpiel, the youngest daughter of Wizard Ponder Stibbons is abducted to the Dungeon Dimensions and induced to work for them. The Things reason that a talented artist such as Ruth Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons can create images of them which will circulate in the real world, act on people's minds and allow multiple gateways for them to enter. ^note Homage to H. P. Lovecraft. Ruth seemingly submits and complies. But she is also the daughter of an Assassin and has worked out an inhumation strategy. This involves the completed sketches and a box of matches.^note  Homage to Death Trance. Read on in the works of A.A. Pessimal.

Film — Animated

• In Beauty and the Beast, the titular Beast scratches a portrait of his human self, most likely out of self-loathing, after despairing of ever escaping his curse.
• Brave: Merida spitefully slashes Elinor's tapestry of the family with her sword.
• The Great Mouse Detective: As Rattigan explains his plan to depose Queen Moustoria and rule in her place, he burns a picture of her in the newspaper with his cigarette.
• Peter Pan: The pirates take turns lazily tossing or even spitting out knives at a crude chalk drawing of Captain Hook on a door since they're upset that they haven't gone to sea in a while. Two knives nearly miss Smee when he walks out of the door.
• In The Swan Princess, teenaged Derek shoots arrows at a picture of Odette, at that point still terribly annoyed with his upcoming Arranged Marriage with her.

Film — Live Action

• In The Stinger of Aquaman (2018). David Kane/Black Manta asks Dr. Shin where Aquaman is so he can kill him, and throws his knife at a newspaper on the wall showing Aquaman's silhouette.
• Boogie Nights: When Eddie Adams comes home late from work, his mother demands to know where he's been, then accuses him of sleeping around with some floozy. She chases Eddie into his bedroom, where in a fit of bitchy pique, she tears his Farrah Fawcett poster off the wall. Eddie flees his home to escape this haywire harpy, and takes up residence with adult film producer Jack Horner. This leads to Eddie becoming the new sex film star Dirk Diggler.
• The first scene of The Day That Shook the World is the would-be assassins doing target practice using a poster of Franz Ferdinand.
• The Hong Kong comedy Diary Of A Big Man has the beleaguered sidekick, Chi-hung (Waise Lee) furiously stabbing a photo of Ting-Fat (Chow Yun-fat) with a ballpoint pen, after the latter set him up on a Bad Date.
• Gangs of New York. On his way to a meeting with Boss Tweed, Bill the Butcher and his gang run into a parade celebrating the Emancipation Proclaimation. Bill (a virulent racist) responds by throwing a knife into a poster depicting President Lincoln, hitting him between the eyes. In a case of wonderful irony, years later Bill's actor (Daniel Day-Lewis) would play Lincoln himself.
• In the 1990 film adaptation of Hamlet, Hamlet (Mel Gibson) hears an intruder calling out for help and stabs them with his sword through his mother Queen Gertrude's bedroom wall tapestry, unaware up until that point that he had just unintentionally murdered his love Ophelia's father.
• Octopussy: When Kamal Khan hires some thugs to murder Bond, he gives them a photo of Bond, and a thug with a yoyo-buzzsaw shreds the picture with the saw.
• Prince Caspian: While interrogating the Professor, Miraz stabs an arrow into a drawing of the Narnian Kings and Queens (the Pevensie siblings), as both a threat against them and to show that the Narnians, though thought long-extinct, have returned.
• Shredder's very first scene in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) has him hurling a throwing knife at the TV where April is interviewing Police Chief Sterns about the Foot Clan, hitting her image right between the eyes and making it quite clear that he means her harm.
  The Shredder: Find her. Silence her.
• X-Men: First Class: In his first scene as an adult, Erik Lehnsherr uses his powers to send a coin through a picture of Sebastian Shaw, the man who murdered his mother. He ultimately does the same thing to the real Sebastian Shaw at the end of the film, killing him.
• In the Czech movie The Mysterious Castle In The Carpathians, the villain has a painting of the protagonist modified to sing in pain when stabbed with a knife.
  Felix Teleke: I nearly forgot, that you steal painting as well.
  Robert Gorc: But only for health reasons.
  (Stabs painting several times, which sings in pain)
  Robert Gorc: Now I am feeling much better
  Felix Teleke: So something like acupuncture.
  Robert Gorc: Yes something like that
• Combined with Smash the Symbol in White House Down. One of the terrorists, after shooting a White House guard, smirks and puts another bullet into a nearby painting of George Washington.

Literature

• In Graham Masterton's novel Death Trance, a tale of dark supernatural creatures coming out of Bali, the Balinese monks who fight the undead leyaks use this as a weapon. Formerly, they made fast pencil sketches of the leyak, then tore them up or set fire to them. At the time of the novel, they have discovered Polaroid cameras work better. Once they have a likeness of the creature, setting fire to it will destroy the undead.
• In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian makes a Deal with the Devil that lets him keep his youthful good looks in defiance of his age and lifestyle of debauchery—in his place, his painted portrait shows the effects of age, drugs, and (probably) several venereal diseases. At the climax, Dorian gets furious at having such a tangible reminder of his own misdeeds, and he stabs the painting with a knife. This is a mistake. Since the picture and Dorian are magically linked, the knife winds up in Dorian's own chest, killing him. This also breaks the original magic, so the painting is restored to its original state, while Dorian becomes so deformed, his own house staff don't recognize him when they find his corpse.
• Sherlock Holmes:
  • In "The Retired Colourman", Holmes's client is a man whose wife ran off with his best friend and his money. Watson observes him violently tearing up a picture of her. It turns out that he murdered her.
  • "The Norwood Builder" mentions a woman's photograph as being "shamefully mutilated" by a jealous ex-fiancé (she'd broken off the engagement on hearing of his shocking cruelty). Sure enough, the man tried to have her son executed for his faked murder.
• At the start of River of Teeth, Houndstooth has selected a Caper Crew from the file photographs laid out on the desk before him. Houndstooth then throws his knife in the air so that it comes down point first into one of the photos, showing that Houndstooth has another reason for selecting that particular photo.

Live-Action TV

• Blake's 7. Subverted in "Traitor" when an unseen assassin kills The Quisling and then destroys a portrait of President Servalan, who was supposedly killed in last season's final episode. Rather than a gratuitous act of violence against the memory of a hated dictator, it turns out to be a Not Quite Dead Servalan destroying her own image so that no-one will recognize her.
• The Brittas Empire: The episode "Exposed" has a reporter named Roger Ferguson, whom Helen had a one night stand with, coming to the centre to do a documentary. At one point, as she's providing therapy for Colin, she can be seen throwing knives onto a photo of Ferguson to show how much she hates him (as he had lied about his true identity as a reporter to her).
• The Flash (2014): In "The Flash is Born," the Reverse-Flash attempts to intimidate Joe West into stopping his investigation of Nora Allen's murder (which was committed by the Reverse-Flash, though they don't know who he is yet.) Reverse-Flash writes "STOP OR ELSE" on the wall, with a photo of Joe's daughter, Iris, pinned to the wall with a knife.
• Outlander: In season 4, Jamie is strong armed into helping the Redcoats search for Murtagh Fitzgibbons, the leader of the Regulators, a rebel group that opposes the Crown. When Jamie and Lieutenant Knox go to the pub, a group of Redcoats are using a wanted poster of Murtagh as the target for their game of throwing blades. Jamie is pressured into taking a throw, but intentionally misses, his blade landing a full foot away from the picture of his godfather.
• Sherlock: The episode "The Blind Banker" starts off with Sherlock and Watson coming across a painting of a banker that is defaced with symbols. Later on, said banker is found dead in his flat.

Music

• Taylor Swift: In the video for "Blank Space" Taylor paints a portrait of her new boyfriend then later destroys it with a knife when the relationship sours.

Mythology and Religion

• In magical and witchcraft practices, this is a variant on a theme of sticking pins in a voodoo doll to cause harm to a loathed one.

Podcasts

• In Quest in Show , Prince Pratt is led into a trap by his Evil Uncle, where he finds a knife stuck into the birthday cake which bears his picture.

Theatre

• In The Flying Dutchman, when Senta is sighing over the Dutchman's portrait, the girls tease her that her suitor Eric will shoot the picture off the wall.

Video Games

• Resident Evil Village: As he explains to Ethan about his hate for Mother Miranda, Heisenberg uses his ferrokinesis to control a knife and stab pictures of the other lords on a wall, insulting each one as he does so.
• Riot City have the second game, Riot Zone, where you begin each stage by stabbing the stage boss' "Wanted!" Poster.
• Timothy vs. the Aliens: In the intro cutscene, we see what looks like Timothy pointing his gun at The Grandfather, followed by a Smash to Black as Timothy says "Bang!". Then the camera fades in and we see a smoking hole in the picture of The Grandfather on the wall behind him.

Visual Novel

• The House in Fata Morgana
  • In the first chapter, Nellie Rhodes destroys a painting of herself and her brother Mell after seeing him out with The White-Haired Girl on a date.
  • A later chapter features a painting of a similar white-haired girl that had been slashed with a knife later revealed to be a portrait of protagonist Michel. Michel is a transgender man and destroyed the painting in a fit of emotion because it depicted him as a woman.

Web Video

• Played with in Edgar Allan Poe's Murder Mystery Dinner Party: George Eliot is killed by having a picture of Oscar Wilde smashed over her head—while she isn't the featured person in the painting, it is later revealed that the killer had been counting on Wilde to enter the bathroom first, and intended to kill him in the ambush. Eliot entering it first was not part of the plan.
• Find Makarov: At the end of Operation Kingfish, Shepherd reveals to a distraught Soap MacTavish the true identity of Kingfish: Vladimir Makarov. Immediately, Soap pulls out his knife and stabs the picture of Makarov that Shepherd gave him, intent on finding and killing the man.

Western Animation

• Played for Laughs in the American Dad! episode "Tearjerker", when one of the villain's henchman throws a knife at a picture of Stan.
  Tearjerker: Oh, you can throw a knife. You know what you can't throw? A birthday party. For me! Last week! [starts crying] I remembered yours!
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold: In “Triumvirate of Terror!”, after agreeing to take on each other’s respective nemeses, Cheetah, Lex Luthor, and the Joker each destroy a newspaper photo of the hero they’ll be taking on. Cheetah slashes Superman’s picture, Joker squirts acid at Wonder Woman’s picture, and Lex shoots Batman’s picture.
• Big City Greens: In "Barry Cuda", Cricket sees the eponymous singing fish has been injected with an axe and when he removes it, the axe goes flying right into a portrait of the Green family, stabbing it hard enough to split it into two haves with Cricket alone on one half and the rest of his family on the other half all together. This is actually a clue that the whole family is responsible for the fish's destruction.
• Gravity Falls: In "The Hand that Rocks the Mabel", Gideon burns away the half of a photo that Dipper is in, in order to show his discontent towards Dipper for supposedly turning Mabel against him.
• Justice League: The cold open of "Hereafter" ends with the Superman Revenge Squad all stabbing the emblem of their hated enemy as they vow to destroy Superman.
• The Simpsons :
  • After Sideshow Bob is given parole in “Cape Feare”, there is a scene where Bob is exercising. On the wall is a photo of Bart which has a cleaver, an awl, and a bloodied carving knife stuck in it.
  • An accidental example occurs in the episode "The Cartridge Family" . Marge is worried about Homer's Reckless Gun Usage , so Homer tries to turn on the safety, only for the gun to fire at a photo of Marge. Twice. Homer puts down the gun, only for it to go off again, this time hitting a knife which goes flying and lands in the picture, squarely between Marge's eyes.
  Lisa: No offense, Mom, but that was pretty cool.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • An accidental version occurs on the episode "Naughty Nautical Neighbors". SpongeBob tries to play the violin, but accidentally sends the bow flying and appears to hit Squidward right in the forehead. The camera then pulls back to show that the bow has actually stabbed a painting of Squidward, depicted screaming in pain.
  • Another accidental version occurs in "The Secret Box". When SpongeBob is snooping through Patrick's rock while he's asleep to get a look inside his secret box, he flies into the wall and a picture of he and Patrick falls on his head and splits apart into two halves, with Sponge on the left and Pat on the right. This instance is a literal foreshadowing of the moments following when Patrick wakes up; the distrust SpongeBob is giving his best friend and the near-end to their friendship.

Real Life

• When facilities of Aleph (the renewed form of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, guilty of several sarin gas attacks, including the most famous Tokyo subway case) were searched, pictures of Japanese officials were found stabbed on altar-like objects.
• A medieval historian named Niketas Choniates recounts a legend that a madman named Basilakios had tried to stab out the eyes on the painting of the Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Angelos. A few years later, the guy was deposed and blinded.

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