History Main / PaedoHunt

* The ''ComicStrip/PerryBibleFellowship'' lampshades this trope with [[http://pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF215-Kitty_Photographer.jpg Kitty Photographer]].

* In the series of ''Film/InTheHeatOfTheNight'' an older male school teacher (with one count of a past sexual offense, as was found out) was accused of molestation by a child, and despite the lack of evidence, and partially thanks to an overzealous-for-sensationalism reporter, it quickly got out of control as people harassed him and shot at his house. Eventually the guy was driven to the point of killing himself. It was found out that his previous sex offender charge was a trumped-up issue from him ''mooning'' someone as a teenage prank, and in the end the child had only accused him to cover up the molestation actually done by his ''father''. Tragic stuff.

* The original ''Franchise//ANightmareOnElmStreet'' was vague about the subject, but TheRemake gives Freddy a clear element of paedophilia, and thus this trope plays into the parents hunting him down.

* One story arc of ''BatmanAndTheOutsiders'' has Arsenal and Co. teaming up with [[SpecialGuest John Walsh]] to hunt down a massive organized paedophile/child prostitution/slavery operation. The arc began with one of the [[WomenInRefrigerators female]] team members admitting to have been a captive of this gang during her teenage years.

* ''HardCandy'' starts off with a naive teenage girl having coffee with an older guy she met on the internet, but it's eventually revealed that [[spoiler:she already had strong suspicions that he was a serial pedophile/murderer and had specifically targeted him. She purposely baits him to get into his house so she can find evidence of his crimes, then torture him, ruin his life, and coerce him to kill himself.]]
* A short version is done in ''PayItForward''. Haley Joel Osment's character decides to run away from home. He's shown at a sleazy bus station counting loose change for a ticket. A man approaches him, talking rather creepily and reaching out to touch him. Then Kevin Spacey's character appears, drags the guy into the bathroom and beats the shit out of him.
* The original ''Film/ANightmareOnElmStreet'' was vague about the subject, but TheRemake gives Freddy a clear element of paedophilia, and thus this trope plays into the parents hunting him down.
* ''LittleChildren'' involves a convicted sex offender being released from prison and moving into a neighbourhood. This is soon followed by one of the other locals spreading warning posters, vandalizing his house and directly assaulting him.

* Occasionally discussed on ''ThisIsWonderland''.
* In ''Series/DesperateHousewives'', Lynette causes the neighborhood to riot over a suspected pedophile, causing his invalid sister to die of a heart attack. At the end, he informs her that he had never acted on his tendencies because of his sister, and he was now "free" to do that.
** He may also have been screwing with Lynette's head for revenge. The ending is rather ambiguous about it.

** She also says she was going to come around to their houses and explain it personally, but as long as they had turned up as an angry mob, she would do it then. It was a mistake, and she was in therapy for it.. Of course, if she had been a man, she might not even have gotten that much out. George asserts that it can't be rape since the boy would want it. His son later asks for advice on girls. George says to be confident. You see where this is going. He has a talk with Max later, admitting what he said earlier was wrong.
* Played straight in a ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' skit in which a computer instructor leads a seminar about [=MySpace=]. One member of the class was a concerned mother and the rest were obvious pedophiles. One humorous exchange:
-->'''Teacher''': ''[looking at one of their user names]'' [="NaughtyGirlHotStuff."=] You know, I don't even want to hear your explanation, but you should know you're gonna get a lot of teenage boys wanting to meet you.\\
'''Pedophile''': ''[badly feigning shock]'' Oh no, I don't want ''that''! Why would I want that? Let me just fix that. ''[mimes typing on the keyboard with his hands about three inches above the keys]''

* ''Series/TheDailyShow'' mocked one of these Paedo Hunt specials by pointing out how, in the "dramatic re-enactments," the online predator ''[[{{Squick}} was typing with one hand]]''.
** This is, of course, due to the fact he was using the other hand to enjoy delicious whipped cream straight out of the can.
* In ''InTheHeatOfTheNight'' an older male school teacher (with one count of a past sexual offense, as was found out) was accused of molestation by a child, and despite the lack of evidence, and partially thanks to an overzealous-for-sensationalism reporter, it quickly got out of control as people harassed him and shot at his house. Eventually the guy was driven to the point of killing himself. It was found out that his previous sex offender charge was a trumped-up issue from him ''mooning'' someone as a teenage prank, and in the end the child had only accused him to cover up the molestation actually done by his ''father''. Tragic stuff.
* Arguably [[ImageBoard Anonymous']] CrowningMomentOfFunny: Getting Oprah [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stn_XCo_dyg to warn America]] that there are [[MemeticMutation "Over 9,000 penises"]] raping kids across the country.

* The in-game internet in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'' includes a SchmuckBait website titled "Lil' Lacey's Birthday Surprise." Visiting it immediately grants the player a 4-star wanted level.

* In an episode of ''Series/BeingHuman'', [[FriendlyNeighbourhoodVampire Mitchell]] mistakes one of his unlabeled discs of "vampire porn" for a ''{{Laurel and Hardy}}'' movie, and lends it out to one of the neighborhood boys. The result is a ''massive'' pedo hunt, complete with (misspelled) graffiti, eggings, angry mobs and being spat in the face.

* ''TheDailyShow'' mocked one of these Paedo Hunt specials by pointing out how, in the "dramatic re-enactments," the online predator ''[[{{Squick}} was typing with one hand]]''.

* A more literal application of the trope happens in one episode of ''Series/WithoutATrace''. A young looking woman poses as underage bait, a fledging, wheelchair bound unofficial cop (an accident prevented him from getting a badge), and a cameraman (who was later revealed to [[RapeAsBackStory have been raped during a home invasion when he was 12]]) set up a sting operation to catch paedophiles, a la ''ToCatchAPredator''. Unlike the Chris Hanson manned operation, this version is more vigilante based and not exactly full proof to prevent people from escaping, which one guy managed to do. The cop goes after him, and gives him a ReasonYouSuckSpeech, which [[DrivenToSuicide drove the pedophile to shoot himself with the cop's gun]]. To [[ItGotWorse make things even better]], when the cameraman realized the cop was about to tell the police about what happened, he tried to kill him to shut up, though was unsuccessful. By episode's end, the cop survived the assault but by killing the cameraman.

* ''HardCandy'' is a ''big game'' PaedoHunt.

-->-- ''This is Wonderland''

* In ''DesperateHousewives'', Lynette causes the neighborhood to riot over a suspected pedophile, causing his invalid sister to die of a heart attack. At the end, he informs her that he had never acted on his tendencies because of his sister, and he was now "free" to do that.

* Used as a part of the setting in ''TheFilth''; Feely is claimed to be a pedophile, which has him almost torn apart in the streets.

* Though it was only revealed retroactively, the seduction of [[SpiderMan Gwen Stacy by Norman Osborn]] may qualify. While there was no hunt on him for that reason, it did stir up the hate for him.

* One story arc of ''TheOutsiders'' has Arsenal and Co. teaming up with [[SpecialGuest John Walsh]] to hunt down a massive organized paedophile/child prostitution/slavery operation. The arc began with one of the [[WomenInRefrigerators female]] team members admitting to have been a captive of this gang during her teenage years.

* The original ''NightmareOnElmStreet'' was vague about the subject, but TheRemake gives Freddy a clear element of paedophilia, and thus this trope plays into the parents hunting him down.

* O-Ren Ishii in ''KillBill'' kills the man responsible for the death of her parents at age eleven. Because he was a paedophile, she managed to get into his bedroom alone with him for the killing.

* In ''{{Batman}}: The Ultimate Evil'', Bruce Wayne discovers that his mother had investigated child molesters and child pornography as a social worker. The book revolves around him going after the same group his mother had found out about, who are now organizing sex tourism to a thinly veiled Thailand stand-in.

* In the first episode of ''BlakesSeven'', the titular hero Blake is slandered by [[TheEmpire the Federation]], who accuse him of child molestation, in order to subvert any revolutionary support he might acquire.
* Subverted (via some parodying of the DoubleStandard) in an episode of ''The George Lopez Show''; George's wife works the neighborhood into a frenzy over a convicted sex offender living in the neighborhood. When a neighborhood mob shows up on the offender's doorstep, they find out "he's" a "she" - a [[HotForStudent former teacher who had sex with an underage student]], and had served time for it. The crowd (with the now-doubly indignant exception of the wife) disperses with basically an "Oh. Carry on, then."

* Played straight in a ''SaturdayNightLive'' skit in which a computer instructor leads a seminar about [=MySpace=]. One member of the class was a concerned mother and the rest were obvious pedophiles. One humorous exchange:

* ''{{CSI}}'' episode "Harvest" used this trope. A 12-year old girl is reported missing and later found dead. There seems to be evidence implicating a convicted paedophile in the region. In reality, the girl's family were covering up her death, and they used an internet watchdog site that lists the locations of such people to look up the closest one to implicate.
* In ''{{Dexter}}'' the titular SerialKillerKiller makes an exception to his "only kill killers" rule in order to kill a paedophile who is targeting his step-daughter, Astor.

* InsaneClownPosse has a song, "To Catch a Predator," concerning a man who uses the show's methods to lure pedophiles to his house, whereupon he kills him. As the chorus puts it:

* The in-game internet in ''GrandTheftAutoIV'' includes a SchmuckBait website titled "Lil' Lacey's Birthday Surprise." Visiting it immediately grants the player a 4-star wanted level.

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* The ''Webcomic/PerryBibleFellowship'' lampshades this trope with [[http://pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF215-Kitty_Photographer.jpg Kitty Photographer]].
[[/folder]]

* Satirized by the [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything Paedofinder General]] character in ''MonkeyDust''. Remember: "Under the basic principles of English law, every man is innocent until speculated guilty!"
* ''SouthPark'':

Nothing better to whip up some outrage in your story than making the badguy a paedophile. More cynical works about this trope will often note that getting people whipped up into a mob-frenzy -- over any subject, but particularly one as emotive and genuinely shocking as this -- can be a very good way to distract and manipulate them.

* In ''{{The Heat of the Night}}'' an older male school teacher(with one count of a past sexual offense, as was found out) was accused of molestation by a child, and despite the lack of evidence, and partially thanks to an overzealous-for-sensationalism reporter, it quickly got out of control as people harassed him and shot at his house. Eventually the guy was driven to the point of killing himself. It was found out that his previous sex offender charge was a trumped-up issue from him ''mooning'' someone as a teenage prank, and in the end the child had only accused him to cover up the molestation actually done by his ''father''. Tragic stuff.

----

* A more literal application of the trope happens in one episode of ''WithoutATrace''. A young looking woman poses as underage bait, a fledging, wheelchair bound unofficial cop (an accident prevented him from getting a badge), and a cameraman (who was later revealed to [[RapeAsBackStory have been raped during a home invasion when he was 12]]) set up a sting operation to catch paedophiles, a la ''ToCatchAPredator''. Unlike the Chris Hanson manned operation, this version is more vigilante based and not exactly full proof to prevent people from escaping, which one guy managed to do. The cop goes after him, and gives him a ReasonYouSuckSpeech, which [[DrivenToSuicide drove the pedophile to shoot himself with the cop's gun]]. To [[ItGotWorse make things even better]], when the cameraman realized the cop was about to tell the police about what happened, he tried to kill him to shut up, though was unsuccessful. By episode's end, the cop survived the assault but by killing the cameraman.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* This shows up in multiple ways in ''Manga/KodomoNoJikan''.
** One of the reasons Aoki-sensei is extremely reluctant to talk to Rin in public is because with the way she behaves, she might easily get him arrested. And yes, she is completely aware of this fact and has used it to blackmail him more than once.
** Aoki and Reiji each have suspected the other of being a pedophile. While neither actually fits the definition, [[spoiler:Reiji has a WifeHusbandry plan for Rin, and Aoki's essentially been {{Stockholm Syndrome}}d into an attraction to Rin]].
[[/folder]]

* Savagely parodied by the ''BrassEye'' [[VerySpecialEpisode Special]], broadcast in 2001 when paedophile paranoia was at its height. Not surprisingly the tabloids didn't get the joke (or, given how much money they were raking in by cynically propagating and exploiting such paranoia, didn't like how close to home the joke hit). One of them ran a piece castigating the show ''[[HypocriticalHumor opposite a picture of a 15-year-old girl's breasts]]'', the [[MoralGuardians Daily Mail]] went so far as to suggest that videotapes of the show would be passed around for gratification among sex offenders in prison, and the furor backfired when the repeat of the show the following night won its timeslot by a healthy margin.
* ''[[Series/{{Dateline}} To Catch A Predator]]'': Why don't you have a seat over there?

* The Fox show "BostonPublic" dealt with this issue in one of their episodes when, as part of a class project, one of the students had taken a photo of his brothers and sisters showering together. His reason for taking the picture was because he liked how innocent and sweet a moment it was - while others viewed it with far more sinister intent, particularly for those that didn't know him very well.
* In a season one episode of ''{{Angel}}'', TheOneWith the vampire-immortality ring, Spike enlists the help of A particularly sadistic fellow vampire to torture the ring's location out of Angel. What makes this vampire so despicable, more than his downright adoration of ColdBloodedTorture, is the fact that "he likes kids." When the vamp gets the ring from beneath Angel and Spike's respective noses, he walks out into the sunlight and immediately approaches a bunch of young children in a very creepy manner. The vamp's never explicitly called a paedophile, but the viewers are pretty clear on the matter regardless.

[[folder:ComicBooks]]

* One story arc of ''The Outsiders'' has Arsenal and Co. teaming up with [[SpecialGuest John Walsh]] to hunt down a massive organized paedophile/child prostitution/slavery operation. The arc began with one of the [[WomenInRefrigerators female]] team members admitting to have been a captive of this gang during her teenage years.

[[folder:{{Film}}]]

[[folder:{{Literature}}]]

[[folder:{{Live Action TV}}]]

* [[Series/{{Dateline}} To Catch A Predator]]: Why don't you have a seat over there?
* Occasionally discussed on ''{{This is Wonderland}}''.

* In the first episode of ''[=~Blake's Seven~=]'', the titular hero Blake is slandered by [[TheEmpire the Federation]], who accuse him of child molestation, in order to subvert any revolutionary support he might acquire.

* In a season one episode of {{Angel}}, TheOneWith the vampire-immortality ring, Spike enlists the help of A particularly sadistic fellow vampire to torture the ring's location out of Angel. What makes this vampire so despicable, more than his downright adoration of ColdBloodedTorture, is the fact that "he likes kids." When the vamp gets the ring from beneath Angel and Spike's respective noses, he walks out into the sunlight and immediately approaches a bunch of young children in a very creepy manner. The vamp's never explicitly called a paedophile, but the viewers are pretty clear on the matter regardless.

[[folder:{{Music}}]]

[[folder:WebComics]]
* The {{Perry Bible Fellowship}} lampshades this trope with [[http://pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF215-Kitty_Photographer.jpg Kitty Photographer]].

[[folder:{{Western Animation}}]]
* Satirized by the [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything Paedofinder General]] character in MonkeyDust. Remember: "Under the basic principles of English law, every man is innocent until speculated guilty!"
* ''SouthPark'':
** The kids accused their parents of being pedophiles to have them taken away, leading to the town being nothing but the kids.
** Averted in the episode "Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy," where upon learning that Ike's female kindergarten teacher is having sexual relations with him, many of the townspeople simply [[DoubleStandard congratulate him on "scoring"]].

* The Music.PeterPaulAndMary song "Talkin' Candy Bar Blues" is about a man caught up in a hunt after innocently offering a child a candy bar.

* In an episode of ''BeingHuman'', [[FriendlyNeighbourhoodVampire Mitchell]] mistakes one of his unlabeled discs of "vampire porn" for a ''{{Laurel and Hardy}}'' movie, and lends it out to one of the neighborhood boys. The result is a ''massive'' pedo hunt, complete with (misspelled) graffiti, eggings, angry mobs and being spat in the face.

* The ''DoctorWho'' ExpandedUniverse novel ''Goth Opera'' features an in-text sort-of example from just before paedophilia became the media go-to moral panic; in it, the Doctor encounters a Christian evangelist leading a mob in hunt of 'Satanists' (actually vampires) who he claims molest and kill children in their ceremonies; the Doctor comments that most sexual molestation actually occurs at the hands of someone the child knows, such as a family member or friend. [[spoiler: Later, the evangelist is forced as a result of mental control to admit that he actually molests his own daughter.]]

* In one episode of ''SouthPark'', the parents get worked up over this trope and end up building a "Great Wall of China" around the town to protect their children from strangers.
** It gets worse after they get the news that the most common molesters are those who the child might know, such as a parent. As this is South Park, the outcome is obvious. That's right, the children go live with Mongolians.
** That episode was about ''abductions'', not specifically molestation. They did do a molestation episode, though, where all the kids accused their parents of it to have them taken away, leading to the town being nothing but the kids.

** Although the first time they handled the issue, in "Cartman joins NAMBLA", they openly mocked the NAMBLA president's attempt to paint his group as noble freedom fighters.
-->'''Kyle''': "Dude. You have '''sex''' with '''''children'''''."

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<<|DoubleStandard|>>

* ''M'': The character "merely" murders, children, but there's a subtext of paedophilia.

* AlanMoore wrote a two issue story arch in Vigilante called fathers day about a girl trying to escape her father.

->''[[MemeticMutation "Why don't you have a seat over there?"]]''
-->--Chris Hansen, ''Series/{{Dateline}}'', "To Catch A Predator."

* The movie ''M''. Although the character really ''is'' a paedophile.
** Correction, the character is a murderer of children by compulsion, there is not much in the film itself that suggests a sexual component to his crimes.
*** Not ''much'', but there is ''some'' subtext to that effect if you're paying attention.
*** The subtext is even stronger in the rarely-seen 1951 American remake, where the killer collects articles of his victims' clothing.
* ''HardCandy'' is a ''big game'' PaedoHunt.
** The hunted really ''is'' a pedophile and possible murderer, which only makes the protagonist ''slightly'' saner.
*** Of course the film serves to critique such people. She is shown to be equally as monstrous as him, if not more monstrous.
* A short version is done in ''Pay It Forward''. Haley Joel Osment's character decides to run away from home. He's shown at a sleazy bus station counting loose change for a ticket. A man approaches him, talking rather creepily and reaching out to touch him. Then Kevin Spacey's character appears, drags the guy into the bathroom and beats the shit out of him.