Line #12 Main/PaedoHunt


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4	[[quoteright:350:[[Webcomic/{{Sinfest}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/padohunt.png]]]]
5
6	->''"People think it's open season on kids right now."''
7	-->-- ''Series/ThisIsWonderland''
8
9	Nothing better to whip up some outrage in your story than making the bad guy a child molester. 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.
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11	----
12	!!Examples:
13	[[foldercontrol]]
14
15	[[folder:Comic Books]]
16	* Used as a part of the setting in ''ComicBook/TheFilth''; Feely is claimed to be a pedophile, which has him almost torn apart in the streets.
17	* One story arc of ''ComicBook/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 female team members admitting to have been a captive of this gang during her teenage years.
18	* In ''ComicBook/TheBoys'', after learning of the [[PsychopathicManchild dark secret]] of the [[AlternateCompanyEquivalent G-Men]] and how they "recruit" children [[spoiler:by kidnapping them and [[DistractedByTheLuxury giving them everything they ever wanted]] to groom them into {{Sex Slave}}s]], even the ReluctantWarrior Hughie is eager to PayEvilUntoEvil. [[spoiler:Thankfully, [[PrivateMilitaryContractors Red River]] beats them to it and prevents a BolivianArmyEnding.]]
19	* [[PapaWolf As a father himself]], ComicBook/ThePunisher is especially vengeful towards people who harm minors.
20	** In the story ''A Brief Rendevous'' from the ''Girl Comics'' anthology, Frank poses as a 14-year-old girl on the Internet to lure out a SerialRapist before shooting him with a GoryDiscretionShot.
21	** A [[DarkerAndEdgier much darker instance]] occurs in ''ComicBook/ThePunisherMax'' #44 when Frank brutally murders two parents that were [[ParentalIncest making "films" with their own young children]]. He blows the [[BoomHeadshot mother's brains out immediately]] before shooting the father in the throat and allowing him to choke on his own blood for a moment before doing the same to him.
22	[[/folder]]
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24	[[folder:Film]]
25	* ''Film/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.]]
26	* The bulk of ''Film/TheHunt2012'' is about a CloseKnitCommunity turning on a member they mistakenly believe to be a child molester.
27	* A short version is done in ''Film/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.
28	* 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.
29	* ''Film/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.
30	* O-Ren Ishii in ''Film/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.
31	* The main antagonists of ''Film/SouthBronxHeroes'' are a child pornography organization masquerading as a foster home.
32	[[/folder]]
33
34	[[folder:Literature]]
35	* The ''Series/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.]]
36	* This is a recurring theme in the works of former Whitehouse member Peter Sotos.
37	* ''[[http://www.minettewalters.co.uk/books/acid_row.htm Acid Row]]'' has the premise of a social worker is visiting the house of a convicted sex offender in a lower-class neighborhood when a child comes up missing. The actual offender is harmless and ineffectual, his father is the dangerous one, and an innocent neighbor is more or less torn apart by the mob.
38	* In ''Franchise/{{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.
39	[[/folder]]
40
41	[[folder:Live Action TV]]
42	%% * Occasionally discussed on ''Series/ThisIsWonderland''.
43	* 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.
44	* In the first episode of ''Series/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.
45	* ''Series/CriminalMinds'' has this occur in the episode "A Shade of Gray" where, after prodding by the local sheriff, the team arrests a local known pedophile for the murder of the six year old victim. They later find out the sheriff planted evidence leading them to the man to cover up [[spoiler: that the boy was killed by his ten year old brother]] to spare the parents some pain.
46	* Subverted (via some parodying of the DoubleStandard) in an episode of ''Series/TheGeorgeLopezShow''; 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."
47	* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'':
48	** Played straight in 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.
49	** In another skit, an adult goes trick-or-treating "as" a sex offender, bringing with him the papers for his neighbors to sign as part of his "costume". He, of course, insists that he's doing this for the realism while dancing around the question of whether or not he is an actual sex offender.
50	* In an episode of ''Series/BeingHumanUK'', [[FriendlyNeighbourhoodVampire Mitchell]] mistakes one of his unlabeled discs of "vampire porn" for a ''Creator/LaurelAndHardy'' 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.
51	* ''Series/TheDailyShow'' mocked one of these Paedo Hunt specials by pointing out how, in the "dramatic re-enactments," the online predator ''was typing with one hand''.
52	* In the series ''Series/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.
53	* ''Series/{{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.
54	* In ''Series/{{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.
55	* A more literal application of the trope happens in one episode of ''Series/WithoutATrace''. A young-looking woman posing as underage bait; a fledging, wheelchair-using 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 ''Series/ToCatchAPredator''. Unlike the Chris Hansen-manned operation, this version is more vigilante-based and not exactly foolproof to prevent people from escaping, which one guy managed to do. The cop goes after him and gives him a [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech "The Reason You Suck" Speech]], which [[DrivenToSuicide drove the pedophile to shoot himself with the cop's gun]]. To [[FromBadToWorse make things worse]], when the cameraman realized the cop was about to tell the police what happened, the cameraman tried to [[HisNameIs kill the cop to shut him up]], but was unsuccessful. By the episode's end, the cop survived the assault, but only by killing the cameraman.
56	* [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] in a skit on ''Series/TheWhitestKidsUKnow'': Trevor sings a song [[HarmfulToMinors to a group of children]] titled ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNR-x1net-A Get a New Daddy]]'', teaching them that if their fathers annoy them, they can [[FalseRapeAccusation lie about him molesting them]] to send them away and get new ones.
57	[[/folder]]
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59	[[folder:Music]]
60	* Music/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:
61	-->I'm probably gonna burn for this
62	-->There's no lesson to learn from this
63	-->There's nothing I'mma earn
64	-->But it sure is fun! (To Catch a Predator)
65	* In the ''Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip'' song, "Thou Shalt Always Kill", one of the commandments is:
66	-->Thou shalt not think that any male over the age of 30 that plays with a child that is not their own is a paedophile. Some people are just nice.
67	* 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.
68	[[/folder]]
69
70	[[folder:NewspaperComics]]
71	* ''ComicStrip/ThePerryBibleFellowship'' lampshades this trope with [[http://www.pbfcomics.com/215/ Kitty Photographer]]. A man lines up a photograph of his cat, but as he takes the picture, his toddler son runs across the shot while nude. When the film is developed, the developers are outraged and call the police, leading to the man's arrest and brutal beating by his cellmates.
72	[[/folder]]
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74	[[folder:Video Games]]
75	* The in-game internet in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'' includes a SchmuckBait website titled "Little Lacy Surprise Pageant." Visiting it immediately grants the player a 5-star wanted level.
76	[[/folder]]
77
78	[[folder:Webcomics]]
79	* In ''Webcomic/TheLettersOfTheDevil'', [[spoiler:it is revealed that Chuck Castor had an affair with an underage intern and subsequently killed her when she revealed she was pregnant.]]
80	[[/folder]]
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82	[[folder:Web Video]]
83	* ''WebVideo/AldriversDevourerOfCos'': In the prequel, Thomas Jefferson ([[AdaptationalVillainy who is depicted as much worse compared to both his]] real-life counterpart and his [[WebVideo/EpicRapBattlesOfHistory ERB]] version), outright told UsefulNotes/FrederickDouglass that he liked to enter children with his cock.
84	-->'''Thomas Jefferson:''' I enter a child of any age with my apocalyptic cock!
85	* ''WebVideo/BartBaker'': In Bart's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNszD3W_G_g FEFE parody]], 6ix9ine is depicted as a child molester and a pedo lover.
86	-->'''6ix9ine''': Looking for a pre-teen.\
87	'''6ix9ine''': Call an uber with some luber to the school yard for 8th graders.
88	* ''WebVideo/TheFinalMinutes'': One of The Path's rules is that children are inviolable, that sexual interference will not be tolerated, and that violators will be ''executed''.
89	[[/folder]]
90
91	[[folder:Western Animation]]
92	* Satirized by the [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything Paedofinder General]] character in ''WesternAnimation/MonkeyDust''. Remember: "Under the basic principles of English law, every man is innocent until speculated guilty!"
93	* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'':
94	** The kids accused their parents of being pedophiles to have them taken away, leading to the town being nothing but the kids.
95	** Played with in the episode "Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy," where Ike's female kindergarten teacher Miss Stevenson has sexual relations with him. While Kyle is disgusted and reports it to the police, the police and many other townspeople simply [[DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale congratulate Ike on "scoring"]]. He turns to Cartman, the [[YellowSashOfPower current hall monitor]] who's taken on a bounty hunter persona, to get Stevenson arrested for kidnapping Ike with the intention to run away with him (though Cartman's only mad that Miss Stevenson was kissing Ike in his hallways without a hall pass). Stevenson kills herself when she's cornered by the police, but Ike decides not to jump with her.
96	[[/folder]]
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Context Main / PaedoHunt