|
|
Lisa Rogan: This is our future, we'll handle it ourselves! You have bigger problems to worry about!
Wheel of Fate/Dr. Roy Curien: *groans in pain and explodes*
The closing line to any fight or disagreement between a teenager and either his father/mother or (more commonly) his important replacement parental figure (in the right genre, between the hero and his mentor). This is either a loophole for someone who really is in the wrong and wants a reason to end the argument without defending himself, or a way for a Good-aligned (or standards-bearing) offspring to inform his Evil-aligned father [figure] that he has crossed the line and is no longer worthy of respect, admiration, or obedience.
A stipulation is that the mentor has been more of a parent than the referenced father ever was. Or maybe an older brother with a Promotion to Parent.
A twist that turns up the tension is "You're not his father."
Compare/contrast with I Have No Son.
Examples
open/close all folders
Anime
Comics
- Spider Jerusalem from Transmetropolitan was once told this by a person he was trying to interview.
Liesl: How is that any of your business? You're not my dad. I do what I have to do. I was told to hide, I hid. I get scared, I deal with getting scared my own fucking way. Clear? [ Beat Panel] Liesl: You're not my dad, right? Spider: No. Liesl: Good. [ Beat Panel]
Fanfiction
Film
- The Room.
- The last conversation Peter and his uncle Ben share in the Spider-Man movie:
Uncle Ben: Now I don't mean to lecture you, and I know I'm not your father...
Peter: Then stop pretending to be!
- "You ain't my pa."
- Inverted in The Godfather:
Sonny: That's easy for you to say; he's not your father.
Tom: I was as much a son to him as you or Mike.
- Said by Kristy in the Baby Sitters Club movie, when her stepfather berates her for coming home late — from a secret visit with her biological Disappeared Dad, but he didn't know that. Made all the more heart-breaking by the fact that there are several points in the books where Watson plainly calls Kristy his daughter, even giving her an antique family heirloom in the Little Sister Spinoff, and her biological dad stood her up in the end, anyway.
- A little jarring though; this is never resolved in the movie (with Kristy apologizing to Watson for what she said), outside of her narration explaining to the audience she felt bad.
- A variation occurs in Terminator 2 with John Connor.
Todd: John, do as your mother tells you.
John: She's not my mother, Todd.
- Played in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as a brief point of contention for Indy and Mutt, as they'd only recently met. Having been raised to believe his father was a British war hero, Mutt doesn't accept the news at first.
- Said by Jerri in the Strangers with Candy movie to Stew the meat-man, who promptly responds, "You're not my daughter!"
- Inverted in Star Trek where Spock meets future Spock, who says "I'm not our father."
- At the end of Ninja Assassin, Raizo confronts his old mentor Lord Ozunu, who wants Raizo to "beg [his] father for forgiveness". Raizo shoots back "you are not my father", prompting a shadow-blending ass-kicking from Ozunu.
- For reference, Ozunu had Raizo and dozens of others kidnapped as children and put through Training from Hell to become ninjas. As far as Ozunu was concerned, they were all his children.
- A gag in Mystery Science Theater 3000 The Movie:
Joe: You know what my kids would say... Tom Servo: "You're not my real father!"
- In the second live-action film of George of the Jungle, Junior says this to Lyle Van De Groot after his mother was hypnotized to thinking he was her husband. Twice. And kicking him in the shins both times. Well, in the second time, Lyle had shin guards, in which Junior then proceeded to stomp on Lyle's foot.
- Superhero Movie parodies the above Spider-Man scene.
Rick Ryker: You're not my father.
Uncle Albert: But I love you like your father did. I looked after you like your father did. I even had sex with your mother like your father did!
- Anna uses this on Isabel in Stepmom, and Isabel's response is "THANK GOD FOR THAT!"
Literature
- Elaine Isaak's Eunuch's Heir — used by Wolfram, the title character, against his (unbeknownst to him) actual, biological father.
- Both used straight and inverted in Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. Joshua (Jesus) uses the line straight when arguing with Joseph; then Joseph, at a later point, points out "I'm not your father".
- In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Sirius tells Molly that Harry is "not her son." Her response? "He's as good as." Later, he does become her son... in-law.
- To make this variant more interesting, Harry feels touched by this... but then goes against Mrs. Weasley's wishes anyway.
- In the Maeve Binchy novel Evening Class, a character has just learned that her oldest sister is in fact her mother. Several days later, her "father" (actually grandfather) asks her to run an errand for him. When she refuses, still upset at the revelation and deception, he sternly tells her "no child of mine is going to speak to me like that". She responds by coldly declaring, "I'm NOT a child of yours.", thus revealing that she knows the secret. After a Beat in which this sinks in, he tells her essentially HAS been a father to her these past 16 years and even if not, he's still her grandfather and deserving of respect.
- In the Sweet Valley Saga book The Wakefields Of Sweet Valley, Ted Wakefield gets fed up with his Aunt Sarah's suggestions on what to do with his life (college, etc) and finally snaps at her "You're not my mother!". He later apologizes, seeing as how she HAS been a mother to him all his life, as his parents (her brother and sister-in-law) were killed in a train crash when he was a baby. However, as the reader knows, Sarah IS his mother—the entire story was a fabrication to prevent him or anyone else knowing that he was illegitimate.
- Inverted in The Thorn Birds, as Paddy and Frank argue, Paddy tells Frank, "You're no better than the bastard who fathered you!", thus revealing what Frank has always suspected, that Paddy is not his father.
Live Action TV
- The lines are spoken word-for-word on Heroes on several occasions when Claire Bennett tries to assert her independence from Noah, aka HRG guy. Naturally, her not-dad, despite his communication shortcomings, is usually right.
- To be fair, dealing with her real father and grandmother soon prompted her to declare "I have a family!" and jump out a tenth story window to escape from them.
- It happened in a bigger way with Sylar. Angela went "Sylar, you're my son — oh no sorry false alarm." It was kind of pathetic.
- The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, in the landmark episode when Will's loser father shows up and invites his son to take a road trip. Will jumps at the opportunity, despite his uncle's warnings that his father can't be trusted.
Will: I've been waiting for this for a long time, my whole life, and nobody's gonna stop me now. Come tomorrow, I'm outta here.
Uncle Phil: Oh, I don't think so.
Will: Who cares what you think? You're not my father!
- Predictably, Will's dad walks out on him again and Uncle Phil is there to comfort him.
- Sister Sister: When Ray tells Tia that her new boyfriend just got out of prison and the bottom line is that she can't go out with him, she responds, "Well, bottom line, you're not my father!"
- 7th Heaven, in the episode when Eric is trying to protect Robbie from his recently resurfaced deadbeat father, Ed:
- Perhaps not quite average for the trope since the boy in question is a baby, not a teenager... But the line came up, unavoidably, in a very tense scene in the Lost episode "Fire & Water". Charlie, insistent on baptizing Claire's baby son regardless of Claire's wishes, runs afoul of Locke:
Charlie: Who the hell are you, John? Aaron's not your responsibility. ...You're not his father. You're not his family.
Locke: Neither are you, Charlie.
- A really bizarre example occurs in the UK science fiction comedy Hyperdrive. Technical Officer Jeffers is reminiscing about being raised by a computer simulation of his father, created when his father knew he was dying. Then, when Jeffers was fifteen, they got into an argument, and Jeffers said "You're not my real dad! You're just a piece of code!" and deleted the program. He tried to restore it the next day, but couldn't.
- The British Soap EastEnders had this sort of conversation, subverted because:
Zoe Slater: You can't tell me what to do, you ain't my mother! Kat Slater: (Zoe's "sister") Yes I am!
- Six Feet Under - Claire uses this line plenty on older brother Nate.
- In Nip/Tuck, Matt says this to Christian right after the latter bails him out of jail. the twist is that Christian really is Matt's father and had only found this out in the same episode. Unusually for this trope, Matt's pronouncement is actually quite accurate- Christian isn't much of a father figure to him at all.
- A slightly depressing example occurs in the last episode of Supernatural, Season One. Sam and Dean have managed to rescue their father and Dean is worrying about having wasted a bullet (it only has a few left and they need all the bullets they can get). Unknown to them, John has been possessed by the Big Bad ever since they found him. But when John comes out and tells Dean how proud of him he is, Dean realizes the truth and says exactly this.
- Played straight in a Season Five episode; a depressed Dean tells this to Bobby.
- There's an episode of CSI: Miami in which Horatio meets a teenage boy. Horatio keeps calling him 'son', until the boy snaps back at him 'You're Not My Father'... little does he know that Horatio had earlier run a paternity test...
- Angel: Angel's son Connor, raised by Angel's sworn enemy in a hell dimension, gets off at least one of these Eastwood style. He later identifies Angelus as his real father (who he wants to kill).
- On Mystery Science Theater 3000: Pod People, after singing "Clown in the Sky", Joel tells the bots that he loves them. Crow's reply is "You're not my real father!"
- In a House episode, the titular character reveals that he figured out that his father (John House) was not really his biological father when he was twelve, and told this to him, causing John to not speak a single word to his son for two months.
- Freddie on iCarly uses this when Lewbert, their building's doorman enters a relationship with Freddie's mother.
- Used in Fringe after Peter finds out that Walter stole him as a child from the alternate universe.
- Delivered in a stunningly awesome way from Clark to Lionel in Smallville, just before the former cuts ties with the latter completely.
- Andrea in The Walking Dead, when arguing with surrogate father figure Dale: "I'm not your little girl, I'm not your wife, and I'm sure as hell not your problem."
- Morgana does this indirectly on Merlin, telling someone that she comes in the name of Gorlois because Gorlois made her who she was, not her real father, Uther.
- On Charmed, Paige delivered this line to her adopted parents during an argument on the day before they died, and spent years feeling guilty about it.
- On Revenge: rebellious teenager Declan to his older brother Jack when Jack is trying to convince Declan he has a duty to attend their father's funeral:
Just because he's dead doesn't make you my father.
- Subverted on Who's the Boss? when Angela and Samantha get into an argument and Angela orders Samantha to go to her room. Samantha immediately shoots back that Angela isn't her mother. Tony intervenes, pointing out that he's her father, and he orders her to listen to Angela.
Stand-Up Comedy
- In a routine done by Robin Williams, the Biblical Joseph, after hearing Mary is pregnant and he'd be "the stepfather of God's kid," fears he won't be able to discipline Jesus since he'd just scream, "You're not my real dad!"
Video Games
- In Super Paper Mario, when Luvbi finds out that she's really one of the Pure Hearts, she argues with Grambi. At one point, she says: "Wait... Why do I explain myself to thee?! Thou art not my real father!"
- In The House of the Dead III, Daniel says this verbatim as he delivers a final shot to his dad, the Final Boss of the game. See the page quote for more details.
- Late in Disgaea, Jennifer chews out her foster father General Carter, who only adopted her to use her for his plans. In the anime, she actually says "you're no father to me!"
- In Dragon Age II, most of the resentment Carver feels towards their elder sibling is because they were left as sole breadwinner and head of the household after their father's death, three years prior to the game. The Legacy DLC implies Carver found it extra hard to deal with, due to Hawke greatly taking after their father in personality.
Web Animation
Web Comics
Western Animation
Real Life
- A serial killer was apparently able to kill about six women operating by this trope. Said women were drug addicts, prostitutes, women that their families just didn't care about anymore.
- Also invoked less seriously (or at least, seriously for a moment, then forgotten about) by much younger children when they're angry with their parents.
|
|
