Role Ending Misdemeanor / In-Universe

Depictions of Role-Ending Misdemeanor in fiction. Examples where the fictional character is found to have committed murder are too numerous to mention, especially in Mystery of the Week shows, and should not be added as they are a major character.

Note that examples relating to adult films, politics, law, religion and business (all of which are prohibited for Real Life role ending misdemeanours) are allowed for in-universe examples.

---

Anime and Manga

• Scott Pilgrim Takes Off: Lucas Lee, already a controversial actor, loses his leading role in a movie about Scott Pilgrim because the paparazzi caught him dating the actress who plays 17-year-old Knives Chau. It isn't even that Lucas is dating a high schooler (Lucas claims the actress is 31) — it's just that he's dating someone who plays one.
• Utaite no Ballad: The opening gives away that Seiji Kotani is eventually arrested and charged with over 20 counts of sex crimes towards underage girls. While he's only sentenced to a surprisingly lenient five years in the epilogue, it's made clear that the music industry has moved on from him and that a comeback is next to impossible.

Comic Books

• Batman:
  • Basil Karlo, the original Clayface, was once an acclaimed horror actor and make-up artist whose career tanked when he got into a number of scandals. Julie Madison mentions that Karlo's press was so bad people wouldn't go to his pictures even when prizes were offered. Later on, Karlo destroyed an attempt to revive his career when he started murdering the cast of the "Dread Castle" remake just because he wasn't offered the role of the main monster again.
  • Post-DC Rebirth, Karlo's backstory was updated with elements from Batman: The Animated Series wherein he was badly disfigured in a car crash. Karlo tried to hide his disfigurement using a discontinued industrial solvent called Renuyu to mold his face. However, Karlo grew desperate to find more of the stuff and got into an altercation with Batman. Karlo was arrested, his disfigurement exposed, and kicked off production of "Second Skin" for his poor behavior. Then he tried to steal more Renuyu, got drenched in it, and became Clayface.

Comic Strips

• Parodied in Bloom County. A lengthy arc where Bill the Cat becomes a famous, hard-partying rock star finishes when he suffers a massive, career-ending scandal. What horrible thing did he do? He spent an evening reading the Bible with a fifty-something nun, an activity in direct opposition to his "sinful" rock star image.

Fan Works

• The Yogurt Extended Universe: In "Joshie's True Face", Greg discovers that children's pop singer Joshie might actually be Joop Vanderkoerp, a member of the Dutch heavy metal band Bloody Rose who allegedly died in a car accident after having done inappropriate things to multiple women. When he and Holly question him about it at a meet-and-greet, he ends up revealing it to be true before trying to threaten them, only getting stopped by the arrival of Greg's mom. When Greg reveals the full story to her, she calls the police on Joshie; he ends up arrested and the revelation makes the news, putting a permanent end to his music career.

Film - Animated

• In Cats Don't Dance, child star Darla Dimple rants to Danny how she sabotaged an earlier scene in the movie by flooding the stage with water, not knowing there's a stage mic on her person and she just blurted it out to the whole audience. By the end of the film, she's been demoted to a janitor.
• In Osmosis Jones, Mayor Phlemming lost his bid for re-election when his attempts to placate the populace by going to a Buffalo wings festival goes awry in the face of a deadly disease almost destroying/killing Frank. He would be relegated to cleaning Frank's bowels and being subsequently expelled from Frank after accidentally triggering his flatulence.

Films — Live-Action

• At the climax of A Face in the Crowd, Marcia turns Lonesome Rhodes' microphone on as the credits roll on his TV show, exposing his classism and pride in manipulating others to the whole world. His ratings tank and he goes into a downward spiral once he hears of this.
• In The Killing of Sister George, June, who plays George, ruins her own career after she drunkenly assaults two nuns in a taxi resulting in the Church threatening to complain to the studios. Her refusal to tone down her behaviour gets Sister George killed off.
• Making Mr. Right has a popular soap opera character killed off shortly after his portrayer gets into a scuffle with the beloved android main character. It's implied the encounter led to the firing.
• Miss Congeniality has Gracie able to enter the Miss United States pageant in place of the winner from New Jersey because the beauty queen had starred in a porn movie.
• Rat Race: Cuba Gooding Jr. plays an NFL referee who has become a pariah with players and fans alike after misreading a coin flip to determine opening possession.
• The Week has beloved chat show host Dick Romans was removed from television after an incident where he went mad on the air and started burning a book.
• Subverted in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Even though Captain America is now considered a war criminal, motivational videos featuring him are still required viewing in high schools across the country.
• In S1m0ne, producer Victor Taransky attempts to end his fictional actress's career with several of these, whether it be having her appear in an awful Le Film Artistique where she eats slop out of a pig trough in a wedding dress, or an interview where she advocates smoking cigarettes, or building shooting galleries at elementary schools. It doesn't take.
• In The Test (2012), a man develops a series of Secret Tests of Character for his fiance, to find out whether she truly loves him. The "tests", however, are rather abusive and humiliating, and when the scheme is exposed, he loses his job.
• In Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Ron Burgundy gets fired from KVWN Channel 4 news after he's tricked into saying "Go fuck yourself, San Diego", instead of his trademark sign-off, "You stay classy, San Diego", thanks to his over-reliance on teleprompters, which sends him into a downward spiral afterwards.
• In Glass Onion, Birdie went to a Halloween party with a costume made in "tribute to Beyoncé", with the implication that it crossed into Blackface. She was subsequently cancelled and lost both her modelling and magazine editing jobs.
• In Barbarian, AJ Gilbride is an actor who was set to film a pilot for a new sitcom but ended up getting fired after his co-star accused him of raping her. The incident was covered by an article in The Hollywood Reporter, meaning the incident is now public knowledge.
• Dominic Toretto from The Fast and the Furious was a member of his father's pit crew. After his father was killed in a racing accident, he ran into the responsible driver and savagely beat him with a wrench. As a result, he was banned from racing for life.

Literature

• Bartemius Crouch from Harry Potter was a prime candidate for the Minister of Magic position after Voldemort's fall, due to his harsh and decisive politics. However, after his own son was caught in the company of Death Eaters, he was Reassigned to Antarctica instead - who would want a Minister who allows such things to happen under his nose?
  • The man who ended up getting the post, Cornelius Fudge, met this trope mostly on account of his stubborn refusal to believe that Voldemort had been resurrected—and his equally stubborn intent on discrediting the people who did. Three days after his sacking, Fudge remarked that the two weeks England's magical community had spent howling for his head was the most united they'd ever been in all the time he'd held the job.

Live-Action TV

• Barry: Sally finds out her former assistant Natalie now runs her own TV show after Sally's own show was cancelled. Believing Natalie has stolen her thunder and pandered to the studio's algorithm, Sally corners her in an elevator and furiously vents her anger at Natalie. Natalie secretly recorded the whole thing on her cell phone and uploads it to the internet, getting Sally fired from her job as a writer and gaining her a reputation as the "Entitled Cunt Girl."^note The nickname comes from Sally ending her outburst by calling Natalie an "entitled fucking cunt" four times in a row.
• On The Big Bang Theory, Leonard goes on a radio show to discuss his field of research. After a series of questions, Leonard's responses imply he thinks that there's no future in physics research and the head of the university threatens to fire him over it. A hastily (and drunkenly) written apology later, his job appears safe.
• Joey from Friends was fired from Days of Our Lives after claiming in an interview that he writes his own dialogue (what he meant was that he sometimes makes minor alterations); the writers didn't take this lightly.
• Sam from Cheers left the Red Sox when his drinking got out of control, although it's never made clear if he quit or was fired.
  Diane: Why aren't you still playing?
  Sam: I developed an elbow problem.
  Diane: An elbow problem?
  Sam: Yeah, I, uh, bent it too much. (mimes drinking from a bottle)
• Drop Dead Diva: Stacy loses her breakout role in a popular sitcom when she assaults her co-star for stealing a commercial gig from her. Not only is she fired, but her acting career is pretty much done for.
• The Punisher (2017): The PMCs that Billy Russo recruits for the SWAT team ambush in "Cold Steel" are former Anvil operatives who were contracted by the State Department to run diplomatic protection details, but who have been unable to get employment after YouTube footage surfaced of them gunning down innocent Iraqi civilians.
• The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel: Midge gets blackballed from the stand-up comedy circuit after she takes down another stand-up comedian during her act. The only way she's able to get on stage to get another shot is when Susie pulls a favor with Lenny Bruce to open for Midge at the Gaslight, where she performs under her real name. In season 3, she gets fired from a tour because of a misunderstanding between her and the musician she opened for. She’d found out he was gay and she was doing a routine in front of a crowd she wasn’t used to (an upper-middle-class Jewish woman in front of a working-class black audience in Harlem) and his manager told her to make jokes about him. She made jokes about how he was a high-maintenance diva and unknowingly used a code word (name-dropping Judy Garland) about being gay. They took it to mean that she was intentionally outing him (the jokes went over the audience’s head) and fired her right before they got on the plane for the European leg of the tour.
• Johnny from WKRP in Cincinnati was working at a radio station in California when he said "booger" on the air. The resulting backlash eventually led to his dismissal and later bouncing around at other radio stations until he landed at WKRP. The California station later rehired him and he left the show, only to return the following episode. This time, he was fired for saying something worse.
  • In the same episode, Johnny's replacement is fired for accepting payola (taking payment from the record companies to play specific songs). Andy and Mr. Carlson are more concerned with him accepting payola than the fact that said payola is cocaine — cocaine possession is the DJ's problem, but the Federal Communication Commission could target the station for letting it happen.
• The Fast Show featured the character of Arthur Atkinson, a 1940s music-hall comedian. In the last episode featuring the character, his audience walks out en masse after he makes a crude joke during a performance, and we are told his career never recovered.
• George (a sportscaster) from Mr. Belvedere once did an editorial complaining about having to stand for the national anthem. His highly patriotic boss doesn't take this lightly and asks him to leave. However, George uses his contract to stay with the station and ends up being reassigned to rather humiliating jobs. The trope comes into play again near the end of the episode when George's replacement shows up for work drunk and George gets his job back after filling in for him.
• Bill from Newsradio was once hired by a malt liquor company to promote their product on the air. He ended up doing so by incorporating as many black stereotypes into his message as he could. Offended, Catherine invokes this trope by getting Bill drunk and getting him to change the message to one that insults the product and uses a lot of gibberish. It works.
• In Victorious, Beck lands a role in a film and gets his friends parts as extras. However, Tori stands up to the female lead after she blames Beck for messing up his line when he didn't. She gets so mad that she demands Beck and his friends get fired.
• Supergirl:
  • Leslie Willis, a shock jock at one of Cat Grant's radio stations, gives an unflattering speech about Supergirl, causing Cat to cancel her show and, since she's still under contract, reassign her to the traffic chopper.
  • Siobhan Smythe tries to sell a story Cat rejected (about Supergirl going rogue) to the Daily Planet. Cat not only fired her but talked with Perry White, editor of the Planet, to ensure he wouldn't hire her either.
• Mimpi Metropolitan: It's not hard for the main characters to get fired from Ada Azab Dalam Cerita.
  • Alexi is always hard to work with from the very start, but the last straw for Akbar (the director) is Alexi leaving the set without permission for the nth time (helped by the fact that now Akbar has a backup star).
  • Juna gets recast as Uta when he doesn't arrive for the scheduled shooting and can't be contacted.
• Inside No. 9:
  • In Seance Time, Terry lost his role as the host of popular hidden camera show Scaredy Cam because of a prank that led to a young boy's suicide. It's only decades later that the controversy has died down enough to try to revive the show.
  • Wise Owl: Wilf was an actor who was the voice of Wise Owl, a popular character from a public information film. After his daughter's death in a fire caused by playing with matches, he was fired from the role because he could no longer be taken seriously as the mascot of a public safety campaign. His acting career subsequently ground to a halt.

Video Games

• Appears as a plot point in L.A. Noire - Cole Phelps, after being the poster boy for the LAPD for most of the game, is stripped from his role as Vice squad officer and demoted all the way to the Arson desk, when his extramarital affair with Elsa Lichtmann is revealed. Elsa being German adds fuel to the fire, with Captain Donnelly accusing him of "sleeping with the enemy". It’s later revealed that Cole's partner Roy Earle exposed him so Cole couldn't discover the morphine heist's link to the Suburban Redevelopment Fund.
• In Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, famous movie star Jack Howitzer gets arrested after accidentally killing Billy Dexter, the host of the show "Entertaining America" during an interview on WCTR.
• The Last Blade: Shikyoh's backstory involves him getting forced out of The Shinsengumi by Washizuka for being a Serial Killer. Unfortunately, Shikyoh continued his murderous ways even after being kicked out.
• Part of the backstory for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is that Team Star became remembered solely as a gang of bullies after a secretary erased all records of the actual bullies they were formed to fight against. The Director of the Academy of Adventure then fired said secretary and had the whole staff resign shortly afterwards.
• The Walking Dead: Season Three: Protagonist Javier Garcia is a disgraced pro baseball player who was blacklisted from the league for betting on himself. This turns out to be the least of his problems once he ends up in the middle of a Zombie Apocalypse.
• Shows up in the backstory of Your Turn to Die: punk band Samurai Yaiba eventually ended up dissolving after their drummer/songwriter was convicted of murder. The twist is that Alice, said drummer/songwriter, not only didn't intend to kill his victim, but that said victim actually survived — meaning that Alice was imprisoned under false pretenses.

Web Comics

• Dumbing of Age: One morning, Robin DeSanto, after supporting several anti-LGBT platforms, wakes up in the house of Leslie, a lesbian gender studies teacher, after sharing some drinks with her the night before. She refuses to leave upon discovering the press have camped outside the door. One two-day stalemate later, her party withdraws their endorsement of her. It didn't help that one of the interns on her campaign staff was revealed to be a date rapist as well (although Robin, to her credit, rightly wanted to see him in ruins for what he'd done). After putting Becky on her campaign staff, Robin enjoyed a brief resurgence—only to concede the race after Becky was kidnapped and her father killed by the man responsible, believing she had not done enough to help Becky's situation. Come the second semester, and she's taken a job as a professor at Indiana University.

Western Animation

• Rugrats: In "Word of the Day" Miss Carol, a popular but secretly mean children's show host, is fired after Angelica Pickles unwittingly reveals on air that she had said something extremely rude about children. She ends up getting replaced by her much nicer Beleaguered Assistant, causing "Miss Carol's Happy House" to become "Miss Stephanie's Happy House".
• The Simpsons:
  • "Krusty Gets Kancelled" had Bart turn the cameras on Gabbo (the puppet whose show dethroned Krusty the Klown) in time to broadcast him calling the kids of Springfield S.O.B.s across the city. Subverted when the incident makes the news and Kent Brockman tries to play it straight, but it turns out that the people of Springfield still adore Gabbo.
  • "You Kent Always Say What You Want" deals with Kent Brockman himself being fired after Homer accidentally pours hot coffee onto his crotch and says a word "so horrible, it could only be said by Satan himself while on the toilet." Though what got Brockman fired wasn't the swearing on live TV (that got him demoted to weatherman while Arnie Pie took over as the anchor) but allegedly having cocaine in his cup of coffee (it was actually Splenda but his boss "thought" that Splenda was slang for cocaine.)
  • "Bart Star" has an example crossed over with Troubled Production; after constantly suffering harassment from Homer as the Wildcats' coach during the game, Ned invoked Let's See YOU Do Better! and made him the new coach. After being guilt-tripped by Marge (pointing out his father never showed any faith in him), Homer goes off the deep end, making Bart the new starting quarterback (even though Nelson was proving a stud at the position, and even Bart himself didn't want to do so), and even giving him the game ball after the team lost Bart's only game, and their first loss of the season, in a Curb-Stomp Battle shutout. It culminated in Bart faking an injury to try and force himself out, but instead Homer gave Nelson a letter to the ref letting him know that without Bart playing, the team would forfeit before even playing. This was Bart's breaking point, as he finally just yells at him "You just don't get it, do you? I DON'T WANT TO BE YOUR STUPID QUARTERBACK!" and storms off the field. While they make up before the game, and while it's not stated outright, it's entirely possible Homer was fired after the season for the entire fiasco.
• BoJack Horseman deconstructs this. A person who was loved one day can be a pariah the next, and vice versa. And if a celebrity is very powerful or influential, he may be 'too big to fail', and even exposing his crimes doesn't make a dent in his popularity, such as in the case of Hank Hippopopalous being exposed as a sexual harasser: if anything Diane, who sought to bring him to justice, suffered the Role-Ending Misdemeanor: Hank just made too much money and was too popular to be brought down, while the backlash Diane got and her subsequent mental health issues put her writing career on hold for a long time. On the contrary, Herb Kazazz got ousted from his own TV show for having gay sex in a public restroom, which in The '90s was too risky behavior for the creator of a family sitcom (despite BoJack being known as rude and sexually inappropriate in his private life around the same time). The nadir of this deconstruction is shown in the finale. During the final season, BoJack is exposed as a predator toward women who indirectly caused Sarah Lynn's death by overdose by not calling until seventeen minutes after she lost consciousness in order to think of an alibi, which leaves him a total pariah in Hollywood. Cut to a year later, and the last movie BoJack did before going to jail, The Horny Unicorn, is a smash hit, and Hollywood loves BoJack again, with him having prospects in line once he finishes his jail sentence.
• Smiling Friends: In "Mr. Frog", this happens to the eponymous Mr. Frog, as he gets fired from his own show after he attempts to eat a TMZ reporter. Pim and Charlie spend the rest of the episode trying to fix his reputation so he can get his career back, but all their attempts backfire; he snaps and strangles a fan at a meet-and-greet, accidentally cuts off a charity coordinator's hands while making a contribution, and goes on a profanity- and slur-filled rant on the Tonight Show. Ironically, what ultimately gets him back on his show is something even worse: eating Rex, the admittedly assholeish director of the show, on live TV.
• Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix: Rayman is Eden's chief propagandist and most beloved TV personality, positions he has held for decades. Then he swears at a coworker on live TV for making a racist comment against him. In response, Eden's Board of Directors quietly fires Rayman and has him replaced with a more tractable doppelganger.

---