Attention Whore / Live-Action Films

• As mentioned in the comics section, The Joker. In Tim Burton's Batman (1989), when Vicki Vale asks what The Joker wants, he replies "My face on the one dollar bill" — not to mention that he explicitly decries the fact Batman is getting his [Joker's] attention in the press. Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker has Terry mention in his "Reason You Suck" Speech that The Joker kept taunting Bruce because he (Joker) wanted to get "a laugh out of the old man." Even the incarnation from The Dark Knight isn't totally immune; once he gets a feel of what kind of person Batman is, The Joker makes it his goal to break him and does everything he can to make Batman see Gotham crumble into chaos. His brief mention to exist in the Arrowverse during the Crisis on Infinite Earths event (which shows a Broad Strokes version of Superman Returns) has him massacring the whole staff of the Daily Planet (in an homage to Kingdom Come) because the Planet was not reporting his atrocities to the level he desired.
• Firehouse Dog: Canine celebrity Rexxx loves to have attention on him, and hates it when other dog celebrities have their own time in the spotlight - getting upset when he's compared to the Taco Bell Chihuahua.
• One of the villains of The Lives of Others, having just declared that "there are only seven types of subversive artists", declares one of the main characters to be one of these. To curb his subversiveness, it's recommended that the government's spies gather enough information to prove he's guilty, then give him a perfectly fair trial so he can't grandstand and make himself into a martyr. If he's convicted, he should be sentenced to solitary confinement for months on end, and when he gets out, he'll never write anything again. (There are hints he's underestimating the artist in question, but it's never made entirely clear.)
• Marvel Cinematic Universe
  • As the God of Mischief, Loki is utterly ravenous for attention. He prefers it to be positive (e.g. he strongly desires validation and affection from Odin in Thor), but he'll settle for the negative kind if he feels that he can't have the former. For instance, when he's at his lowest in The Avengers (2012), he thoroughly relishes the fear and submission he inspires from humanity. Tony Stark lampshades this when he labels Loki as a "full-tilt diva." After he supplants Odin as the King of Asgard, Loki commissions a huge statue to be built in his own likeness along with a self-aggrandizing play that exaggerates his heroism on Svartalfheim because he wants to be adored by his subjects. What Loki can't stand is someone being apathetic towards him (like Thor in Thor: Ragnarok) or being ignored (such as his incarceration on Asgard, where Frigga was his lone visitor).
  • The Avengers (2012): Tony Stark, good god. He's partly doing it to break the ice (and at one point, to implant a computer virus into SHIELD's network to find out what they're hiding from the Avengers), but he's also clearly reveling in his captive audience in order to show off and crack jokes nonstop.
  • Spider-Man: Far From Home: At his core, Mysterio is a man who just has to be the center of everyone’s attention, to be given all the fame and acknowledgement that he believes he’s owed. To Mysterio, you’re either there to lavish him with praise, or to be a martyr who dies tragically in one of his fake disasters. And if you don’t play along and stroke his ego, he will make you suffer. Even when he gets shot, he wastes what little time he could’ve spent saving himself on arranging a Thanatos Gambit to expose Spider-Man’s identity and frame him for Mysterio’s crimes, all just to ensure the world thinks he’s the real hero and loves him accordingly.
• Not Okay: Danni wants people to notice her, and is willing to do some underhanded things to achieve this.
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl: Jack Sparrow has a tendency towards this. When James Norrington calls him the worst pirate he ever heard of, he just replies gleefully: 'But you have heard of me'.
• In Rags, Kadee's "boyfriend", Finn, is only dating her as a contractual obligation. He's in it solely for the spotlight, and it shows when he gleefully greets the crowds and reporters that meet them outside an event while Kadee just wants to get inside, how he pushes her to the side so he can get some solo-pictures, and how his biggest gripe when Kadee stops spending time with him is that "Rags" is on all the magazines instead of him.
• Dr. Frank N. Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show just loves to be the center of attention and Lord help you if you steal his spotlight (even if by accident).
• The killer in Scream 4, Jill Roberts, is a particularly noxious example. Initially presented as a Final Girl in the vein of her cousin Sidney from the first three films, it turns out that this is exactly what Jill was counting on. Having watched Sidney become a celebrity as a result of her experiences, Jill sought to do the same by staging a killing spree of her own, murdering her friends and even her own mother as a "remake" of the events of the first film. Once it was done, she planned on framing her accomplice Charlie and her boyfriend Trevor for the killing spree, coming out of it looking like the Final Girl and claiming Sidney's fame for herself. The worst part is, had she not slipped up afterwards and accidentally exposed her plan to Gale, she would've gotten exactly what she wanted.
• This is basically the crux of Sadie and McKayla's motive in Tragedy Girls. They want international fame and recognition, so they murder people, and then report on it on their true crime website.
• Sid in Virtuosity is one hell of a "virtual" attention whore.
• Veruca Salt from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is a Spoiled Brat who believes that It's All About Me, and her need to be paid attention to and obeyed cues her Villain Song "I Want It Now".
• 22 July: After Breivik is arrested, he lies about the possibility of there being other terrorist attacks to make sure the Prime Minister pays attention to him and his cause, he does Nazi salutes in the courtroom to aggravate everyone present, and he initially goes along with his lawyer's suggestion to employ an Insanity Defense purely because he knows it'll piss off the victim's families to know that he could avoid any prison time whatsoever.

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