Bullying in cartoons

Mine are about two years old at the latest.

You know, I have to wonder why Pit is obsessed with this site. It’s gonna ruin his life!

I don't have any grudges left. All of my bullies I either beat in a fight or made up and became friends with.

edited 20th Apr '15 1:10:36 PM by VeryMelon

One need not nurse a grudge in order to find the act of bullying, and the people who perpetrate it, repugnant. I was never bullied, and I can honestly say I don't find bullies sympathetic at all, regardless their reasons. And frankly, I don't find it surprising that bullies may have forgotten the people they victimized; that's not so much well-adjusted as unselfaware, and kind of disturbingly non-empathetic. I mean, it's one of the features of a sociopath that they don't care about the pain they inflict.

Dude, anyone with the slightest passing knowledge of psychology can tell you sociopaths can't feel empathy. Because, you know, that's what makes one a sociopath in the first place.

You don't need to have been a victim to know something as basic as that.

edited 19th Apr '15 6:44:23 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

That the bullies get away with it is Truth in Television. That authority figures will bland out the conflict to the point where the person who initiated it, who is usually better at lying and have the 'both sides were wrong, but you who responded to the provocation were moreso' is also this. The blindness of parents to a character like Megan as well, and so on for a lot of the most infuriating tropes in bullying.

But where it gets me is when the bully's actions are overloaded even beyond real life situations, they cross the line so often it forms a DNA Spiral, and then—they actually do get punished. Yet by the point we get to this, any punishment short of imprisonment seems to fall way short. Also, please do not have every situation that comes down the pike hew to the bully's advantage. There has to be something they didn't expect or account for. Make them bullies, make them Karma Houdinis. Don't make them omniscient.

As to Peter and Lois, my dream scenario :

One of Stewie's devices de-ages them to high schoolers. By some plot nonsense, they have to go to school. Meg and Chris walk with them there, smile, push them over and point to them, yelling one word.

"FRESHMEN!"

We wouldn't even need to see what followed, and so the God-Kings bleed. I think that's what bullying in fiction needs - just that one moment. Not defeat, or conversion, or exposure. Just 'Untouchable Awesome You was, for all of five seconds, hurt by Worthless Useless Me, and while you can and will now make things worse, it happened, and you can't change that.'

Well, what if they are? You seem to be the only one so far who has a problem with the conversation as it's going. You seem to be mostly hanging about, telling people that they're whining and need to get over it. Here's a point, telling people to shut up about it, however obliquely or passive-aggressively you do it, is not really contributing, it's just being dismissive. And really, I've never been bullied; I can't imagine why anybody'd lie about that. Well, no, actually I can imagine why someone might lie that they HAD been bullied, just not that they hadn't.

Returning to the main point of the conversation, I'd have to say one of the best examples of a pack of bullies, played for laughs and exaggerated to the point of ridiculousness, would have to be the Kankers from Ed, Edd, and Eddy. They were terrifying, and it was amusing that pretty much everyone on the show treated them like a force of nature. If they got hold of you, you were just lost...

edited 19th Apr '15 10:21:14 PM by Robbery

Sometimes there are no therapists or the therapists are not really helpful? Still, there are methods to takedown a cartoon bully......

"Eratoeir is a Gangsta."

There actually was an episode in which Peter and Lois switched places with Chris and Meg. They were picked on at school, while Meg and Chris flourished, so there's that.

Well things slowly went down the tubes for Chris, and Meg suffered the brunt of that, but yeah, beforehand it was a startling mirror of that idealised scenario they pointed out.

Peter and Lois also had stories where they suffered repercussions from someone they bullied now grown up.

edited 20th Apr '15 11:55:29 AM by Psi001

Question: if all your going to do is ridicule other posters, then why are you here?

Oh God! Natural light!

I was bullied. A lot. So yes, seeing it annoys and infuriates. But what we discuss here is its fictional treatment. For me, it comes to be the emotional version in most fiction what 'Kalish-splosions' are for Power Rangers fans. A lot of distracting flash that arcs ever higher and usually falls flat.

What fo you guys think of the bullying done by the furniture in Adventure time? Can bullying be a 'good' thing to get someone to confront their own problems?

"Eratoeir is a Gangsta."

I'm here because I care about your wellbeing.

I know we're supposed to give everyone the benefit of doubt, but somehow, I'm not actually buying this.

And for truly epic lulz.

And this is one of the main signs of trolling behavior.

Can bullying be a 'good' thing to get someone to confront their own problems?

In real life, no way. It only adds further stress, emotional pain, and psychological damage. Bullying is never constructive, only destructive. Saying otherwise is just an attempt to justify deplorable antisocial behavior.

edited 20th Apr '15 7:29:38 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

You're kinda pushing it when you declare that someone is an unempathetic sociopath just because they can't remember someone they might have picked on 5 or 10 years ago.

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

I wasn't commenting on that part, just on Bonefart's implication of one needing to have been bullied to know bullies lack empathy.

I hate when people defend bullies. I agree that holding grudges is unhealthy and that forgiving people is the key, but when people act as if it's no big deal and it should be swept under the rug, it makes me upset and makes my blood boil.

Characters like Vicky or Peter are sociopaths, though. Part of the baggage involved with playing exaggerated comedy is your characters' larger than life behavior ends up matching mental states that go way beyond normal socially acceptable standards.

The best bully characters are those with actual layers to them other than being onedimensionally cruel for the sake of it, like Buford or even Nelson Muntz.

Or if you could count her, Pacifica Northwest. Early on she was a generic bully, but as of Season 2 of Gravity Falls she's became a lot more sympathetic and likeable with a pretty good reason as to why she's a bully.

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