Equal-Opportunity Offender

God bless America.

"Here on The Filthy Frank Show, we support prejudice equality: everyone gets shit."

— Frank, Filthy Frank

Some authors like to play favorites making one side look like the good one, while making fun of the side they don't sympathise with.

Not these authors. In this kind of show, there is no such thing as an acceptable target. They either mock all sides of an argument or none.

This trope is never played completely straight all the time due to the fact that Most Writers Are Human and all humans are biased (at least unconsciously).

This trope applies when a show doesn't have bias for any side in a given situation. However, it can be used inside the story too, when a character is particularly offensive to everybody.

A number of people have called themselves equal-opportunity offenders when defending themselves from accusations of bias, bigotry, etc, and have had varying degrees of success. The less successful ones have helped make the phrase a tad controversial, if only by association. One point raised against it, for example here, is that there are far more identifiable groups of humans than anyone could have time to offend. By selecting Scientologists or redheads for mockery and overlooking plumbers or right-handed people, the show is being less than "equal". In response, one could argue that certain groupings are naturally associated with certain stereotypes to begin with and it's not the show's fault that those prior groupings, however arbitrary they may be, are the ones that come to our minds as the "sides" in question.

In addition, it has been argued that if different groups of people are in unequal situations to begin with, then it's difficult to offend them all "the same". ^note An analogy: if you dealt out an "equal" amount of physical pain to every living human, say with a single punch to the gut, then some might feel nothing while others die a Death of a Thousand Cuts thanks to the previous actions of numerous other not-so-equal opportunity hurters — or just from having unluckily poor health. Of course, this argument is itself controversial, and has been challenged as misguided, unfair, or patronizing. It's a heated debate.

For a character in universe who is willing to offend anyone, see Hates Everyone Equally.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The dub of Ghost Stories targeted everyone, including perverts, neglectful parents, Jews, homosexuals, racists, atheists, Republicans, the disabled, sluts, and even Christian Slater.

Comic Books

• Haagse Harry mocks every ethnicity and political background, starting with the author's own.
• MAD Magazine had mocking commentary about any genre of movie, every political candidate, every philosophy, most celebrities, and even both sides of the Cold War (in the form of Spy vs. Spy). If there was a sacred cow to be found, they'd fire up the barbeque. In the process, the lawsuits they incurred by the targets they spoofed could fill a small law library in regards to speech and press freedoms in the USA.
• Whenever real-life politicians were spoofed in Mortadelo y Filemón, no side was left unscathed. Highlights include mockingly renaming the Socialist party from PSOE to PSAO (which, when read in Spanish, sounds similar to "pesado", which is used to describe something heavy, but also someone really boring or annoying), writing a whole story based on Luis Bárcenas (whose comic counterpart is only referred to as "The Treasurer"), former treasurer of the right-wing People's Party who would be convicted for corruption in 2018, and a cocktail invented by Bacterio to make all party leaders relax and speak calmly to each other instead starting a battle royal of sorts. Not even politicians from abroad were safe: one story reimagined Fidel Castro as a Mad Scientist able to invent a computer virus that physically affected the computer's user and send it to several world leaders to create chaos, this same story depicted George W. Bush as something of a sadist who gleefully signed off on death penalty sentences, and other featured French Socialist leader François Mitterand visiting his Spanish counterparts, and being driven to insanity by the agents' antics.

Fan Works

• Miraculous: The Phoenix Rises lampoons practically everyone on the political compass and ideological spectrum.

Films — Live-Action

• Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes) is a 1965 British-American comedy that runs on the Funny Foreigner trope with multinational pilots taking part in an Epic Race. The German pilot is an efficiency freak wearing a spiked helmet, the French pilot is a Handsome Lech more interested in flirting with beautiful women (that he can't remember the names of) than actually trying to win, the British pilot is a stuffy eccentric, the Italian pilot is a flamboyant Catholic loudmouth, and the American rep is a cocky, whiskey-loving cowboy. What mitigates the offensiveness is that a) Fake Nationality is thoroughly Averted - every actor is of the same nationality as the character they play, and it is clear from all the performances they appreciate the joke, and b) the film draws the line at depicting the one non-white character in too undignified a way (the Japanese pilot is depicted as an intelligent and pleasantly polite fellow, and can speak English to boot).

Literature

• Anita Blake is willing to take a shot at any group. For example, the books portray conservatives as bigoted troglodytes who want to exterminate vampires for being different and liberals as air-headed idealists who think vampires are harmless creatures even when they aren't.

Live-Action TV

• Hail to the Chief explicitly labeled itself as one, word for word, as shown in the ad on the show's page.
• Top Gear, during the Clarkson/Hammond/May era, was willing to offend every group imaginable. Jeremy Clarkson was the biggest example, as when he gave a negative review for a car, he would not only complain about the engineers and mock the factory workers, but make offensive comments about the entire population of the manufacturer's country, especially when on a test drive in that country — and no country was safe, even England got the same treatment as any other country.
• Frankie Boyle will attack anyone and everyone.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000 made fun of anything and anybody equally.
• Mongrels was very free about who it set out to offend.
• Spitting Image. While (British) politicians and celebrities are the series' main targets, the show has no limits as to what groups it seeks to offend. Not even the biggest sacred cows are safe from being turned into grotesque puppets.
• Video on Trial: If they're an musical artist and they make music videos for their songs, they will be mocked.
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia fits this trope to a T. The show mocks every sensitive topic, everyone on the political and ideological spectrum, and even itself.
• The Whitest Kids U' Know, with its vulgar style of Black Comedy, had no limits as to which groups it wished to offend.

Newspaper Columnists

• The Straight Dope: Cecil Adams doesn't shy away from sensitive topics just because they may offend. In one column he said, "About the only people this column has failed to offend already in its checkered history are left-handed Anabaptists."^note "and just wait till they get a load of next week's blockbuster"

Radio

• Though politically a libertarian with conservative leanings, radio host Neal Boortz described himself as this. He was of the opinion that if he didn't say something at least once in each installment of his radio show to offend you, no matter who he is, he wasn't trying, and described his program as "insensitivity training." He regularly said offensive things of varying natures simply for the purpose of what he called "stirrin' the puddin'."

Stand-Up Comedy

• George Carlin, moreso in his early days than his later ones. If you exist, he makes fun of you. Woman, man, black, white, left, right, didn't matter. To him, you sucked or someone was making you up.
• Lisa Lampenelli. Audience members have gotten offended when she wasn't making fun of them.
• Carlos Mencia is fond of using racial slurs for every ethnicity in existence. But his favorite is "beaner," for Hispanics.
• Russell Peters, who will take pot shots at every ethnicity in his audience, including (and especially) fellow Indians.
• Don Rickles was a passed master at this trope. His act freely took swipes at every race, religion, creed, orientation, political affiliation, occupation, etc., etc., etc., with no favorites played.
• Dave Chappelle has made fun of white people, black people, everyone else under the sun and everyone else who isn't.

Video Games

• Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (the video game) starts with a long list of those who it will offend, working out to pretty much everybody.
• Postal 2 is this in spades. The reason why it was even made was to offend Moral Guardians who protested violent video games back in the day. It also isn't afraid to make fun of religion, political issues from the early 2000s, and even itself.
• Punch-Out!! also has a long list of nationally stereotypical boxers. It also helps that two of said boxers are from the creators' home countries. (Canada for Next Level Games, and Japan for Nintendo)
• The Grand Theft Auto franchise revels in this trope. Each game mocks the sad state of society, the sad state of the outcasts of society, minorities, white people, gay people, straight people, transgender people, game developers, religion, atheists, cults, the military, the government, those against the government, foreign art, old people and even its own players.

Webcomics

• The protagonists of Living with Hipstergirl and Gamergirl are a ditzy Womanchild gamer whose ability to function in the real world seems next to zero and a snotty Hipster who will tell you all about the social problems but can't be bothered to do anything about them since that might interfer with her social media habit... and they are the characters portrayed the most positively. Any group portrayed in the strip is going to be full of well-meaning idiots at best, and most are actively self-serving and deceitful.
• Bertstrips and Teleshits revel in this trope. They will take pot shots at every group, ethnicity, religion and fandom imaginable, even if the creator of that strip is part of one.

Web Original

• The Babylon Bee is willing to take shots at anybody, but it especially loves to make pot shots at people across the political spectrum and ideological lines, including it's "main" conservative Christian audience.
• Uncyclopedia. If it exists, it will be parodied.
• The pure evil that is Encyclopedia Dramatica. If it exists, no matter how sacred, it has a page there that's plastered with Rule34 and Shock Images.
• What the Fuck Is Wrong with You? makes fun of everyone and everything equally.
• During SF Debris's review of "The Conscience of the King" There is a brief asside where he lists the groups of people that will be mocked on the show. The list is rather comprehensive. ^note  "So if you are new here, here are the subjects which are not shown respect here: whites, blacks, Asians, Latinos, Indians, men, women, straights, gays, bis, the religious, the agnostic, and the atheist. We mock the left, mock the right, mock the center, mock the apathetic, mock consumerism, mock communism, spit on the socialists, laugh at the fascists. We'll pick on liberal President Obama and conservative PM Cameron, along with his wife Nick Clegg. We'll piss on the Hawkman, Cyberman, Tallman, Saruman, Batman, Beltran, Baldwin, and Berman. So if you were not aware of it until now, Star Trek is not sacred here."
• The Filthy Frank Show goes out of its way to deliberately make fun of a whole slew of different groups of people. Perhaps Frank himself summarized it best when he said, "Here on The Filthy Frank Show, we support prejudice equality: everyone gets shit."
• DarkMatter2525's If Muhammad Replaced Trump depicts the left wing as a horde of SJWs who hate everything Donald Trump says until they find out Muhammad said it, whereas the right wing is a horde of rednecks who agree with almost everything Trump says, but are horrified at Muhammad saying them. Trump is depicted as being able to spout out sexism, antisemitism and racism with people only being moderately surprised, and Hillary Clinton is depicted as a robot who puts too much emphasis on the fact that she is female and can get away with killing a man. Even the media is shown putting far more emphasis on the things that Trump says than Hillary murdering someone.
• Jreg's political satire is Anti-Centrism, in which jre holds every possible radical position on the political compass as well as other compasses at the same time. This is done to poke fun at the extremes as well as the centrists without stating what jris political views are as to not form any echo chambers. A Nazi, a Fascist, a Communist, an Anarcho-Capitalist, an Anarcho-Communist, Socialists, Capitalists, left-wingers, right-wingers, an Anarchist, a Totalitarian, Environmentalists, Climate Change Deniers, Independent Journalists, Corporate Journalists, Serial Killers, Feminists, Conspiracy Theorists, Absolutist Post-Left Hoppean Neoaccelerationism, and Centrists^note  Although centrists get made fun of the most can enjoy jris content.
• Geek Juice Media claims this is their goal with their content:

We at Geek Juice don't care about your gender, race, religion, sexual preference, or divisive political beliefs.
We also don't care if you're a SJW, MRA, gay, trans, gamer, otherkin, headmate, furry, skinhead, brony, vegan etc.
We accept EVERYBODY.
As long as you accept that we WILL make fun of your group at some point.
It's what we do.
We come from the church of Carlin, Bruce, MST3K, Pryor, Stanhope, Rock and Hicks.
It's ALL on the table when it comes to being funny. DEAL with it.

• Sgt Ducky: Ducky's lewd and vulgar style of humor means he can make fun of everyone.
• The Barney Bunch videos, with their vulgar style of humor, have no limits as to which groups they seek to offend.

Western Animation

• South Park is famous for mocking every side in an argument.
  • In "Goobacks", the characters appearing on a political talk show were named "Pissed-Off White-Trash Redneck Conservative" and "Aging Hippie Liberal Douche".
  • While South Park is (in)famous for making fun of religions such as Mormonism, Judaism, and Scientology, they also make jokes about non-religious people in a few episodes, such as atheists (in "Red Hot Catholic Love" and "Go God Go") and agnostics (in "The Poor Kid").
• Despite complaints of biases, Seth MacFarlane has stated his goal with Family Guy is to offend everyone. The series frequently delivers on his promise, with vulgar jokes about everyone and everything imaginable.
• American Dad! revels in this trope. For example the main character and his daughter (who are right/left wing radicals respectively) are both depicted as complete hypocrites.
• Eris says this in her debut episode in The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy.
• Animaniacs. If it exists, it will be mocked. In the original series, Ross Perot, Bill Clinton, Ludwig van Beethoven, Abraham Lincoln, Queen Elizabeth II, and Rasputin all get their turn on the roasting spit.
• The Boondocks. Unlike the comic strip, which is unmistakably left-wing in its bias.
• The trailer for the first season of Paradise PD starts with a Long List of people who might be offended by the show and which seems to include pretty much every single group of people in existence. The show itself does its best to deliver on that promise.
• The premise of the Sponge Bob Squarepants episode "Squirrel Jokes" has SpongeBob making cheap jokes about squirrels at a comedy show that lead to Sandy getting bullied and made fun of. After Sandy complains and SpongeBob has an epiphany, instead of simply not making jokes that rag on others, SpongeBob makes jokes about all the residents of Bikini Bottom instead of just singling out Sandy or squirrels.

Real Life

• This, along with Brutal Honesty, is the modus operandi of many a Caustic Critic. They don't care about the creator's race, gender, ideology or religion, they think they have the right to be criticized harshly.

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