Embarrassing Hospital Gown

"Leave it to you to make a hospital gown look unsexy, Hank."

— Dale, King of the Hill

A hospital gown (also known as a "patient gown" or "johnny gown") is a loose-fitting garment that is worn by patients in medical facilities. They are specifically designed for ease of movement, with their most notable feature being that they're open at the back, allowing healthcare professionals to easily access the patient's body for medical procedures and examinations. This exposure makes wearing them very uncomfortable for some people, so it follows that in fiction, hospital gowns have long been a source of embarrassing situations and gags, often of the Naked People Are Funny and Joke of the Butt variety. This can also be played for Fanservice or Fan Disservice.

Characters will commonly dislike and complain aloud about having to wear skimpy hospital gowns and are often very eager to get back into their real clothes. Self-conscious and shy characters will feel particularly embarrassed about it, often demanding a "No Peeking!" Request when wearing or changing out of these gowns. Since the gowns themselves are fragile they are prone to Wardrobe Malfunction or a Stripping Snag. A common occurrence is for a patient to accidentally expose themselves to other patients or visitors, which can even cause a Naked Freak-Out.

Even the doctors and nurses can crack jokes about the gown. If it's inappropriate, then it's likely also a case of Orderlies are Creeps or a Dr. Jerk. If the doctor or nurse is a Hospital Hottie, it can also cause the patient to feel extra self-conscious, and may even lead to a Raging Stiffie on males, which the gown makes quite difficult to conceal.

Sometimes the humor comes from the patient not caring, and simply walking around exposing themselves to anyone (including the audience). This usually occurs with old or unattractive people for the Fan Disservice factor, but it can also happen to a Shameless Fanservice Girl, with reactions varying from Please Put Some Clothes On to Eating the Eye Candy. A The Patient Has Left the Building situation will often be more comical if the character is wearing this, and it can lead to a Naked People Trapped Outside situation or make one look like a Naked Nutter. But this can be Played for Drama in situations where someone who escaped a medical facility will quickly need to procure new clothing, as wearing a skimpy hospital gown in public makes one stand out quite a bit.

Usually overlaps with Naked People Are Funny. See Modesty Bedsheet for when a sheet or blanket is used to cover someone's body after they had medical care. See Mooning when a character deliberately shows his butt as a form of taunt. See Undressing the Unconscious for when the source of the embarrassment is that the character was changed into the gown while they were unconscious. See also Hates Wearing Dresses, Embarrassing Pyjamas, Embarrassingly Dresslike Outfit, Goofy Suit, Goofy Print Underwear, Uncool Undies, Bad Job, Worse Uniform, or Forced into Their Sunday Best for other tropes about clothes people hate.

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Examples:

Comic Books

• All-New Wolverine: In issue #22, Laura wakes up in a hospital bed in a hospital gown after being unconscious for two weeks. But she doesn't notice it and is angry at all the time she already spent in bed and wants to get back to the action. So when she yanks off their IV and gets out of bed, she ends up giving Gabby an eyeful of her buttocks, causing Gabby to snark to Laura that it may be better to put some clothes on before she goes to talk with S.H.I.E.L.D.
• All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder: In issue #6, Jimmy Olsen visits Vicky Vale in the hospital as she's about to check out, and she asks him to bring her clothes so she can change out of the skimpy hospital gown she has. As if to emphasize this, there is a Male Gaze shot of her bare legs as she slides out of bed, and Hormone-Addled Teenager Jimmy can't help but stare at. To make things more embarrassing for him she also starts stripping out of the gown on the spot, not caring he's standing right there.
• Birds of Prey: In issue #71, Dinah/Black Canary is taking Barbara / Batgirl out of the hospital in a hurry on her bike. Barbara is still in a hospital gown and Dinah jokes that she better put on a coat unless she wants to flash her butt to every cab driver in Gotham.
• In Daredevil Volume 2, #15, Matt is visiting Natasha in the hospital as she's about to check out, and she's still wearing a skimpy hospital gown, and rants to Matt she hates those things as she takes it off in a hurry. She also gives him (a blind man) a joking "No Peeking!" Request and he responds with a dry "Very funny".
• Star Pig: In issue #3, Vess wakes up in an alien hospital after suffering a concussion in the last issue, and is very embarrassed to find out her clothes had to be cut off and she was dressed into a hospital gown, especially since the one who did it is a Pretty Boy doctor she has a crush on. To make things more embarrassing for her, the hospital gown is also open in the back, and she's baffled that advanced aliens still use this hospital gown design. The alien doctor then explains that they synthesized that gown specifically because all they know from Earth is based on American pop culture and they tried to replicate "American hospital aesthetics". She replies she'd much rather have something that "covers her rumpus", and uses the clothes synthesizer to make something else.
• The Unstoppable Wasp: In issue #4, Priya is bedridden and wearing a hospital gown when she's cleared by the doctor, just in time for news of the missing Nadia to reach her. She's so eager to go help look for her that she forgets the open gown and ends up flashing her naked back to most of her family and friends, much to her mortification and she demands everyone there to forget anything they saw.

Fan Works

• Kedabory's Elmore Chronicles: In "The Disease", Mx. Small has a hospital gown while receiving treatment for the titular affliction, but when the universe launches them and the kids back home to Elmore, they magically have their normal clothes back on. Embarrassed, they ask the kids if they saw anything, to which Gumball says they've seen them wear worse^note By this, they mean that in canon, they have repeatedly seen them either shirtless or in a loincloth.
• Daily Equestria Life with Monster Girl: Take a society with no nudity taboo, and an injured centaur who very much does, as well as two doctors whose skills at stitching wounds really don't translate to fabric well. Cerea's first attempt at moving in the improvised contraption results in it basically falling apart around her. Guess the genre really does follow her everywhere.

Films — Live-Action

• Something's Gotta Give: Erica, Marin, and Zoe are waiting in the hospital hall after Harry's heart attack when he suddenly wanders into the hallway wearing only a backless hospital gown and acting loopy due to all the drugs in his system. He ends up walking in circles and flashing his bare butt to the women and the audience many times, much to their annoyance. Erica later incorporates this moment into the play she is writing.
• Yes-Man: The climactic Race for Your Love scene near the end of the film has Carl leaving the hospital while still wearing his hospital gown, borrowing a friend's motorcycle to do so. It's made very clear during the scene he's inadvertently flashing his butt to hundreds of drivers as he does.

Literature

• Joe Hill's short story Thumbprint features a rare case where this trope is Played for Drama: during her time in Iraq, protagonist Mel was once involved in the interrogation of an Iraqi they nicknamed The Professor because he was a teacher. The man had been brought in with a broken tibia which had to be put in a cast first and was still wearing only a hospital gown when the soldiers took him away for questioning. While escorting him to the interrogation room, the soldiers humiliate The Professor by deliberately kicking away his crutches, causing him to fall and his bare ass to be exposed. They add more fuel to the fire by then intentionally pulling the string of the gown, causing it to drop and expose even more of the Professor's bare skin.
• Harry Turtledove's The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump, despite its fantasy crossover setting, still uses hospital gowns with all of their attendant embarrassment. One character refers to one as "a peep-show of a gown."
• Whateley Universe: During her enforced stay for psychological treatment in ARC Red, Circuit Breaker complains bitterly about having to wear a hospital gown for weeks on end, and jokingly refers to her doctors/captors as 'fucking perverts' for this (sometimes accompanied with Flipping the Bird at the surveillance camera in her cell). For their part, the doctors are aware that if given regular clothes, Merry would try to escape custody.

Live-Action TV

• All in the Family: When Archie goes to the hospital for a gallbladder operation he's seen trying to hold his johnny shut and complaining that he didn't even know which side he was supposed to "expose to the world."
• 'Allo 'Allo!: "Going Like A Bomb" opens with René arriving at the café in the middle of the night wearing only a hospital gown. He soon explains to the audience that he just escaped the hospital after a bizarre rescue mission where he ended up having to wear that gown for reasons not elaborated on. He also says the gown is open at the back so "forgive him if he doesn't turn around", and he indeed never turns his back to the audience. But soon enough, his Abhorrent Admirer Lieutenant Gruber walks into the café and happens to catch an eyeful of René's bare backside, much to his mortification.
• Being Human (US): When Sally (as a ghost) visits her mother on her deathbed, she laments to Josh that she's the type that hates having to wear hospital gowns. Later, when she dies and turns into a ghost, both she and Sally are relieved her ghost form isn't stuck in a hospital gown forever.
• Chicago Fire: Lampshaded in "Who Lives and Who Dies". When Severide visits Anna in the hospital, she teases him about how he was hoping to find her in a backless hospital gown and catch an eyeful, but she's actually wearing a very modest robe.
  Anna: I know what you're up to. You heard that I was up and about, and you figured I'd be wearing my hospital gown, open in the back, and get a little peep show.
  Severide: You figured it out.
  Anna: Yeah, well, too bad for you, this robe's from Grandma Turner, and it stays firmly in place.
• Count Arthur Strong: In "Doctor Two", Michael is in a hospital, wearing a gown, and about to be anesthetized so the doctors can find out whether he got rabies from having his hand bitten by a dog earlier that day. Initially, he starts to relax under the anesthetic, only to have an Oh, Crap! reaction upon seeing that one of his doctors is actually Arthur wearing a white lab coat, having somehow tricked the hospital staff into thinking he's one of them (despite Michael earlier stating that Arthur's such a bad actor, he'd never be able to do this). Michael, who has become increasingly paranoid that Arthur is a Harbinger of Impending Doom, starts screaming unintelligibly that the man in glasses is not a doctor, and stagger-lurches off his bed and tries wrestling Arthur out of the room, at which point Arthur becomes just as horrified when his hands end up behind Michael and he realizes "HELP ME! HE'S NOT WEARING ANY UNDERPANTS!" By the end of the episode, Arthur mutters that he can't stop thinking about Michael's bottom now (just like he also couldn't stop thinking about monkeys' bottoms earlier throughout the episode).
• The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: In the "Ill Will" episode, Will has to have his tonsils out, and while in the hospital, he is embarrassed by the gown, especially after a nurse catches a glimpse of him and quips. "It's Showtime at The Apollo!" He eventually ends up wearing another gown backward to cover himself.
• Fringe: Played for drama in "Olivia", as Olivia is dressed only in a skimpy hospital gown when she escapes the government facility where she was being experimented on, and due to a High-Dive Escape in the water, she's drenched while wearing it too. Her first priority is to get herself some real clothes so she won't stand out so much, leading her to sneak into Henry's taxi and demand he get her clothes at gunpoint. She doesn't exactly care about changing out of them in the backseat of Henry's taxi, though he's clearly not comfortable with it.
• The Returned: Lena is rushed to the backless hospital after the permanent scar on her back starts to get worse, and the open back conveniently gives the audience Toplessness from the Back shots of her. When she escapes from the hospital (still in her gown) and ends up at Adam's house, she's quick to want to change out of it, claiming it's "kind of gross", leading to an embarrassing moment where she has to ask Adam to turn around so she can change.
• Sister, Sister: In "Operation: Deja View," Tia and Tamera end up having their appendixes removed at the hospital where they were born and decide to sneak out of their hospital room to find their birth records with Roger's help. Roger says he'll "cover them from behind" hoping this trope is in effect, but the twins inform him that their hospital gowns aren't open in the back.
• St. Elsewhere: In "Equinox", one of the friends of the Patient of the Week jokes that the last time he's been to the hospital, all the nurses stood on the edge of the bed to try to look up at his hospital gown.
• True Blood: In "Somebody That I Used to Know", after Luna accidentally skinwalks into Sam while he's in the hospital, and she comically sashays out of the room with the backless gown, flashing Sam's butt to a weirded out Kevin. She later then makes sure to steal the clothes of another male patient, in order to be able to leave the hospital without attracting attention.
• My Wife and Kids: In "Michael's Garden", Michael is reluctantly doing a prostate exam and is uncomfortable about "his butt hanging out". On cue, the nurse comes into the room from behind him and checks him out and jokes that it's because "us poor underpaid healthcare workers have to get some perks".

Magazine

• MAD Magazine #170 had a Hospital Supply Catalogue. One listed item was "Reversible Hospital Gowns", which were guaranteed to leave something embarrassing exposed even if it was put on backwards. Available in 3 sizes: Wide gap, Wider gap, and Falling off completely.

Video Games

• Cloning Clyde: The titular character is stuck in a laboratory wearing only a hospital gown. While the game does provide an option to stick him in a pair of tighty-whities, he's completely bare by default with his ass prominently on display for comedy's sake.
• Deep Rock Galactic: Ever since Rival Escalation, players who fail a mission or get badly injured on the Space Rig will respawn in their home base's medbay, with their normally professional gear being swapped out for a hospital gown as a way to humiliate them. While the dwarves' backsides are thankfully covered in this case, the fact the dwarves' only other article of clothing is a set of Goofy Print Underwear debatably makes it worse.
• Grand Theft Auto V: In the aftermath of the "Freighter" version of the Merryweather Heist, Lester arrives at the docks in a backless surgical gown — having left scheduled treatment for his wasting disease in a hurry to stop Trevor from doing something very stupid. Turns out that the object that Trevor just stole was a nuclear device that will make him and everyone else on the team the subject of an international manhunt if he doesn't put it back immediately. Throughout this scene, Lester's ass is on full display.
• In Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, the intro scene sees Venom Snake escape from a hospital together with the mysterious agent only known as "Ishmael", who is undercover as a patient and therefore dressed in a gown and precious little else. As Venom Snake is severely physically weakened due to recently having spent years in a coma, he can only crawl along the floor while Ishmael sneaks ahead in front of him. The resulting camera angle results in Ishmael's butt being on full display at several points, adding quite a bit of Bathos to an otherwise pretty tense scene.
• In Crush Crush's uncensored mode, at Adversary rank Cassie wears one, backwards, and is less than pleased about the situation. In censored mode, she becomes a Bandage Mummy instead.
  Cassie: Oh good. I was hoping my breasts would be seen by perfect strangers today. Check mark that fucking box!

Webcomics

• SwordCat Princess: Erica is forced to wear one when she has to stay at the hospital, and she complains she hates it almost as much as she hates the hospital's food. For extra gag she's also wearing it backward during the scene, something that shocks both the staff and her co-workers, not that she cares, and she later nonchalantly changes right in front of them.
• Twin Dragons: When Kai and Kaya do a check-up at the hospital, they have to wear backless hospital gowns. Kai isn't happy they're open at the back, but the doctor just points out he can tie up the laces. Kaya doesn't notice or care that they're backless, and her brother has to tie up her laces for her, lest she walks like that everywhere.

Western Animation

• The Fairly OddParents!: In "Open Wide and Say Aaagh!", Timmy has to wear a hospital gown while awaiting his tonsillectomy. There are a couple of gags of "full moons" being flashed, including poor Timmy running into his dad (who was wearing the gown because he was voluntarily having his gall bladder removed) bent over.
• King of the Hill: In the episode "Hank's Unmentionable Problem", Hank wears a hospital gown while visiting his doctor about his issues with constipation. Since the gown is open at the back, Hank ends up accidentally flashing the audience (and later apologizing to them in the end credits).
• NASCAR Racers: In one episode, Charger is briefly hospitalized, when the rest of his team visit him. Oh, and a camera crew comes to interview him. Charger gets up with the intention of leaving the hospital, and Stunts points out that because of the hospital gown, his "rear bumper" has been broadcast on national television.
• Neo Yokio: After her Near-Death Experience, Helena swears off her Fashionista ways while still at the hospital, and as a protest, decides to never change out of the flimsy hospital gown she's wearing. She even attends a fancy party while wearing only that, which scandalizes Neo Yokio's fashion-fixated society and embarrasses her friends and family. It also backfires somewhat since some of her die-hard fans decide hospital gowns are a new trend are start wearing those instead of their school uniforms, to the annoyance of the staff. By the time the Christmas special rolls around Bergdorf Goodman is selling couture hospital gowns and diamond-encrusted bandages to the trendy youths of Neo Yokio.
• Rocket Power: In "Big Air", after an asthma attack lands Sam in the hospital, he is naturally put in a hospital gown. The embarrassing part comes when he leaves his bed and bends over to pick something up from the floor, and at that very moment, his friends and Raymundo come in through the door behind Sam. While the viewer is spared the view, it's pretty obvious from their reaction the other characters got a good look at Sam's bare behind.
• The Simpsons:
  • "Blood Feud" has Mr. Burns about to die until he gets a blood transfusion, getting healthier by the second until he stands up triumphantly, unfortunately giving the audience a perfect view of his rear end.
  • Played With in "Round Springfield". Bart is hospitalized after eating a metal Krusty-O and he wears a gown that is closed on the back, with a scene even showing he still had his undies on underneath the gown. But while Lisa talks to Bleeding Gums Murphy, who is staying at the same hospital, Bart shows up in his hospital gown and deliberately invokes this by lifting the gown up and revealing he took off his undies and has drawn eyes on his butt cheeks.
    Bart: Hello, I'm Doctor Cheeks. I'll be making my rounds, but I'm a little behind.
  • "Throw Grampa from the Dane": after his visit to Dr. Nick, Grandpa returns to his family while still dressed in only his hospital gown, exposing his bare butt.
• Steven Universe: Future: In the episode "Growing Pains", Steven visits Dr. Priyanka Maheswaran in the hospital due to him glowing pink and random parts of his body swelling and shrinking rapidly. When instructed to put on a hospital gown, he asks the following:
  Steven: Is that one of those blue things that doesn't cover your butt?
  Dr. Maheswaran: [throws the gown next to Steven] Yes. Now let's get started.
• The T.U.F.F. Puppy episode "T.U.F.F. Love" has Verminious Snaptrap wear a hospital gown and complain about it leaving his butt uncovered.

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