Unacceptable Targets

""Some of the papers ran slanderous stories saying the nuns cohabited with the marchers, and I made a bad joke about how I'd come down to get a little of that action, and Harry Belafonte grabbed me by the throat. He was not amused.""

- Alan King on why you should rethink inviting a stand-up comic to your civil rights march.

This is Unacceptable Targets: the flip side of Acceptable Targets, a Sacred Cow that you dare not tip. Doing so may result in anything from "Dude, Not Funny" to the entire audience staring at you in shocked silence for a split second before breaking out the Torches and Pitchforks. Comedians and critics that gladly cross all the lines will still stop at this one, no matter how bold they are. In short, some things are just sacred.

A Dead Baby Comedy will demonstrate its meanness (depending on the writers behind it) by mocking these mercilessly; this can cause the cancellation of particular episodes considered too offensive or tasteless. If Unacceptable Targets is somehow made funny, it almost always belongs to Crosses the Line Twice category. Not to say that there is no such thing as Affectionate Parody. Humor can be constructed in a way that reveres and respects its targets or makes them appear all the more awesome. Still, comedy is a difficult business and sometimes even jokes meant to be respectful can be misinterpreted. As a result, it can sometimes be better to simply not try.

Sacred Cow is a Sub-Trope to this. Contrast with Acceptable Targets. Compare with Even Evil Has Standards, Jesus Was Way Cool, 100% Adoration Rating, The Complainer Is Always Wrong, and Too Soon. Some situations can result in heavy Unfortunate Implications, Double Standards, Positive Discrimination and Values Dissonance in which The Rival or the counterpart of the Unacceptable Target can become an Acceptable Target.

Can sometimes be difficult to separate from Once-Acceptable Targets in cases where the subjects in question were mocked at one time by one people in the dark annals of history. Perhaps a good rule of thumb to distinguish between the two is "Oh, you're mocking the Once Acceptable Target? How behind-the-times you are. I will laugh derisively at you." vs. "You're mocking the Unacceptable Target? YOU MONSTER!!!"

For less serious examples, see Unacceptable Targets/Fictional Examples.

The deceased in general
It is typically not a good idea to rejoice at a person's death or make fun of a deceased person. This is more so if the person died tragically and/or recently. Even if they were formerly an Acceptable Target, it's best not to say "They deserved it!" or such. While there may be some exceptions, such as those who died via the death penalty, Suicide by Cop, by sheer stupidity (see the Darwin Awards, most of the victims on 1000 Ways to Die, etc.), other similar causes, and Adolf Hitler, all we can say is Your Mileage May Vary.

Web Original

 * In Nethack, Izchak, the keeper of the lighting shop in Minetown, is never killed, even by the most hardcore mass-genocidal players. He's named after a member of the devteam who died of cancer, and killing him is considering to be very bad form.
 * Averted in YouTube Poop as Billy Mays is one of the most popular sources. To be fair many poops are made in his honour and a number of poopers have stopped creating Billy Mays YTPs after he died.

Live Action TV

 * In the infamous 'Eulogy Song' from The Chaser's War on Everything, Andrew is cut off by the rest of the team before he can start a verse about Belinda Emmett.

Professional Wrestling

 * Owen Hart and Eddie Guerrero are both beloved by WWE fans, to the point where fans will cheer their names if anything relating to them is brought up, the fans will cheer. Even moreso with Owen, because of the WWE's exploitation of Eddie's death and memory. Owen was left alone for the most part.

Real Life

 * Incidentally this page itself was created on September 11, whom the victims of the 9/11 tragedy are good examples of this trope.
 * If the individual in question was well-known enough and was generally respected, mocking any assassinated leader or celebrity is considered very tasteless. Examples: Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr, Mohandas Gandhi, Anwar Sadat, John Lennon, Itzhak Rabin. (Oh, and Princess Diana....although she wasn't exactly assassinated.)
 * When Richard Nixon died, it temporarily became acceptable only to remember positive aspects of his presidency such as opening relations with Red China. This lasted until some previously unreleased Watergate tapes were discovered, which revealed him to be an even bigger racist Jerkass than the ones presented during the investigation (including statements where he said he'd tolerate abortion in the case of mixed-race babies).
 * Despite being basically a walking punchline before his death, for about six months after Michael Jackson died it was considered extremely poor taste to bring up his bizarre appearance or paedophilia charges (most people instead choosing to focus on his 80's and early 90's stardom), to the point that some videos poking fun at Michael got a ton of hate mail, despite those videos being made before he died, with little to no objections at the time. This has died down a bit, but even today people tend to walk on eggshells when making Michael Jackson jokes, for fear of reprisal. The 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland brought back the paedophiliac accusations against him however.
 * The death of a child by any means is also never to be mocked. Just ask T.J. Lane when he thought it was a good idea to mock the victims he killed... all teenagers like him. The victims' families were none to happy about it.

Survivors of a tragedy
While they didn't exactly die, the above also applies to survivors of a horrific tragedy. Perhaps even more so as they are alive to at least do something about the mockery. Considering that they saw many lives die first-hand (including perhaps their friends and family), they won't take it lightly to say the least.

Real Life

 * Such examples include survivors of tragedies, whether unintended like the sinking of the Titanic or deliberate like the September 11 terrorist attacks.
 * Pretty much any war veteran.
 * People who have survived living under a tyrannical regime that caused massive loss of life (such as those of Hitler and Stalin).
 * This can also include people who suffered through a natural disaster, such as Hurricane Katrina and the Japan earthquake/tsunami.

Military Servicemen and Servicewomen
Watch what you say about the military, especially around loved ones of soldiers and Marines who've died while serving. This is also a specific version of the deceased in general and survivors of a tragedy, considering that it is very likely that they will see people die first hand, not to mention they may even get severely injured or even lose their lives serving.

People who have gone into space
Space travel is dangerous, and the requirements to make a career out of going up into space are astronomical. You have to be in peak physical condition, possess high intellect, endure months of specialized training, and the potential for disasters during any launch, mission, etc. can strike in the blink of an eye. The sacrifices throughout the years of astronauts, regardless of their nationality is nothing to take lightly. Much like the aforementioned case with the shell-shocked seniors, modern astronauts are around to provide a counterpoint to the mockery, and in some cases, will not deal with it for very long.

Anyone Who Puts Their Lives on the Line in General
The world can be just as dangerous as space, so it takes a lot of bravery for someone to put for lives on the line to ensure the safety of others, knowing one move can be fatal, even a foolish one deserve some credits. Many occupations like police, doctors, military and even stork clerks have dangers. Those in these fields know their lives are charge and deserve respect for doing so.

Web Comics

 * Used in-universe in Dr McNinja, with "Nasaghasts" that ruthlessly hunt down and destroy anyone who threatens or tries to harm an astronaut. Doesn't matter why you do it—if you do something mean to an astronaut, you're going down.

Real Life

 * Moon landing conspiracy theorists have fallen to the bottom of the conspiracy theory hierarchy in recent years, making the holdouts appear even more detached than the norm. When one such theorist is Bart Sibrel who approached Buzz Aldrin and breached the subject in the most professional and respectful fashion he could think of, Buzz respectfully disagreed with his opinion.
 * Even better.

Mister Rogers
Perhaps because of his inspiration to many people across the internet when they were kids, Mister Rogers is given this treatment across the internet. Try to make fun of this man and the hive mind will eat you alive.

Advertising

 * In the late eighties when Burger King made an ad with a fake Mister Rogers explaining why BK burgers were better than McDonald's burgers, Fred Rogers said "You will stop that immediately!"... and they did. This was mainly because he looked too much like the real him, and did not want kids to get confused. By comparison, obviously no kid is going to confuse Eddie Murphy (see below) for Mister Rogers, and Murphy's sketch was broadcast safely out of the way of any typical child's viewing time.

Newspaper Comics

 * One Pearls Before Swine storyline involved, after spending time picketing Sesame Street since everone pickets Wall Street, Rat winds up plugging a Family Unfriendly reboot of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, acting his usual self (read: drinking, smoking, rattling off Family Unfriendly Aesops). There were no repercussions from this parody, however...

Live Action TV

 * A rare subversion: Fred Rogers liked Eddie Murphy's parody of his own show, "Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood." To be fair, it was an Affectionate Parody, not deliberate and malicious mockery. Apparently, Eddie Murphy caught up with Mr. Rogers and told him, "You understand, we only do it because we love you."

Magazines

 * MAD made some jokes at his expense once (the "MAD Nasty File") which, given how they usually mock celebrities, seemed tame. The article claimed Rogers "...cannot possibly think as slow as he talks, or he'd still be deciding what to have for breakfast yesterday", and "...is possible the only celebrity in show business who buys sweaters at K-Mart."

Music

 * His role in The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny may be thought of as an aversion of this. It's definitely an aversion in the animated video, where he's Driven to Suicide. This doesn't seem to bother anyone because it's a major source of his Memetic Badassery.

Web Comics

 * Xkcd tried to dig up some dirt on Rogers, but failed because there wasn't any. And his name cannot be used as a porn name.

Western Animation

 * An infamous opening gag in Family Guy featured Stewie terrorizing the Town of Happy and trying to kill Mister Rogers; even series creator Seth MacFarlane thought it wasn't funny. Even so, Stewie's rampage turns out to be a Dream Within a Dream, and it's Mister Rogers who gets the last laugh.

Real Life

 * Fox & Friends cite a University study regarding Mister Rogers and, essentially, say he ruined the children watching by giving them a sense of entitlement. All you need do is read the comments on the video for just how much hatred viewers had for the hosts by the end of it.
 * One Urban Legend shows that some folks will slander anyone; the rumor states that he was a Vietnam veteran, and according to some, was rather brutal towards enemy combatants. His ever-present sweaters supposedly concealed tattoos. Some even claim the military service was part of a plea bargain for violent crimes. Of course, this was all completely untrue; for one thing, Rogers was born in 1928, and thus was too old to have served in the Vietnam war. Also, he was working as a puppeteer during the war, so it's not like no one knows where he was at the time.
 * There is a popular myth that when Mister Rogers car was stolen it was reported on the news the same day, and the next day the car was back with a note of apology and a fresh coat of wax.
 * One of the reasons Westboro Baptist Church is so hated is because they are willing to attack him.

Troping

 * In fact, one of the working titles for this trope was "The Mr. Rogers".

Lèse majesté
In many countries that have royalty, insulting the king, queen, or their family is forbidden by law. In some of these, most people won't actually care much, and you'll get you a fine at most if the authorities notice - but in other countries, such as Morocco and Thailand, doing so will also get the population upset with you, and can end you up in prison for several years.

Dictators
Like the above, in many countries and empires that are ruled by a dictator or emperor, saying anything bad about the leader or their family is a huge crime and doing so will definitely lead to very serious repercussions. In Imperial China for instance, even saying the Emperor's real name was a capital crime.


 * The Imperial China one deserves a bit of elaboration, as it even extended to certain spellings of the emperor's name (aka style names). Laws were even enacted at points in time (and were later rescinded) to Obvious Rule Patch any possible exceptions or loopholes.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
In Turkey, it is illegal to insult the name of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who is considered to be the greatest hero of the Turkish people. In other words, this trope is backed by law.

Muhammad
Culturally, attacking Muhammad is one of the big no-nos in Islam, like the case with Ataturk in Turkey. Even displaying an image of him is pretty taboo, since it also runs into the general creed on not depicting people or even animals in some parts of Muslim faith. Notably, however, this doesn't extend to most of the Western world, which has precipitated a load of conflicts recently and usually ends up with the artist in question being threatened with a fatwa proclaiming their death.

Western Animation

 * South Park has lampooned pretty much everyone and everything on the planet, at one point or another, including the show and the creators themselves. However they ran into issues when it came to lampooning Muhammad. Parker and Stone went for lampooning the fact that he's not an acceptable target, instead (particularly because 5 years before the Muhammad taboo was back in the limelight, he had been depicted with no repercussion!). Of course, the second episode of their 200th anniversary two-parter had all mention of Muhammad's name censored by the network, along with the speeches at the end (which didn't even mention Muhammad.) Comedy Central went so far as pulling it from ever airing again - they won't even let it be streamed on the show's official website. You can find it here but its being a TV rip means the bleeps are still in place.

Jesus
Directly attacking or insulting Jesus Christ is considered one of the big no-nos of Christianity. That doesn't mean people refrain from doing it, and it doesn't mean there isn't an entire religion that inverts Christianity out there (there is), but it does mean that doing so is something that will also precipitate a load of conflicts in any society with a large Christian population, especially if said Christians are of The Fundamentalist persuasion or are or are influenced by Moral Guardians. Though while parodying or trivialising Jesus and Christianity is somewhat tolerable, doing the same thing with the Holy Spirit would land you in very hot water according to Matthew 12:31.

This is a large reason why Crystal Dragon Jesus and especially Jesus Was Way Cool exist: the former sidesteps (sometimes quite well, other times so sloppily as to create Unfortunate Implications) the idea of a direct attack on Jesus by creating a Jesus Expy to be attacked. The latter exists as an attempt to separate Jesus from either the perceived view of Christianity and/or from religion itself.

The Monty Python film Life of Brian was often accused and caused (understandable) furore from religious groups as the film appeared to mock Jesus and His teachings; while the Pythons did consider directly lampooning Jesus and the New Testament in much the same vein as Monty Python and the Holy Grail, with one proposed sketch in which Jesus' cross is falling apart because of the idiotic carpenters who built it and He angrily tells them how to do it correctly, the Pythons eventually conceded despite being non-believers as Jesus was "definitely a good guy" and they saw nothing worth parodying in His teachings: "He's not particularly funny, what he's saying isn't mockable, it's very decent stuff", said Idle later. They instead settled with satirising organised religion and political movements using the New Testament setting as a framing device and Brian Cohen as the reluctant saviour.

The Virgin Mary
While Her role as Jesus' mother is somewhat downplayed by some Christian denominations as just an ordinary woman who happened to give birth to an extraordinary son, Catholics venerate Her in such high regard that scoffing Her off or trivialising Her would unsurprisingly result in outrage from them. Cue the likes of Madonna and Lady Gaga who used the Virgin Mary as part of their edgy stage persona and out of shock value, and the leagues of irate Christians who took umbrage to the use of Mary and the Rosary as part of their acts. Even Katy Perry, who is herself no stranger to controversy, took issue and tweeted "Using blasphemy as entertainment is as cheap as a comedian telling fart jokes." when outrage ensued over the use of Marian imagery in "Alejandro". It helps that Perry is a practising Christian and has previously released a gospel album under her real name.

Some have also objected to the common British epithet "bloody" (as in "Bloody hell!") as insulting to the Virgin Mary.

Clergy
Though this has somewhat been downplayed over the years, no thanks to negative stereotypes of priests as depraved kiddie-diddlers feasting on altar boys, making fun of clergy was (and still is) a big no-no in some societies especially those with a devoutly religious population such as the Philippines. The now-defunct Hays Code for one had a specific ruling forbidding filmmakers from depicting priests and ministers in a less-than-flattering light, and noted tour guide Carlos Celdran was arrested in the Philippines (albeit controversially) as per the "offending religious feelings" clause of the Revised Penal Code for disrupting a Holy Mass at the Manila Cathedral by donning a Jose Rizal costume and holding up a "DAMASO!" placard in protest of the Philippine Catholic Church's perceived interference with the passage of the enacted Reproductive Health Bill.

Animals
Animal abuse is a terrible thing, and in some circles it is just as unforgivable to mock and abuse animals as it is people.

Real Life

 * Just ask Kenny Glenn, who posted a video of himself and a friend abusing a cat on YouTube; after a link to the video was posted on /b/, he was identified mere hours later by /b/tards who compared the video to photos on several social networking profiles to find out his name and location, reported him to his local police, and got him, along with his friend, arrested on animal abuse charges that same week. If you thought Kenny got it bad, Cheyenne Cherry got it even worse.
 * Never EVER post videos of throwing puppies into a river. /b/ and Michael Bay will find you.
 * Clint Eastwood is a known lover of animals, and he and his wife keep several animals that they've rescued on their ranch, and Mr. Eastwood loves talking about how much he loves them, and how much he despises people who abuse animals. So put it this way: if you abuse animals, Clint Eastwood--Dirty Harry himself—will find you and punish you.

Once-Acceptable Targets
Some Once-Acceptable Targets can also be Unacceptable Targets at times, although not always.

Really, anyone (and anything) in some places

See also: Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement, Berserk Button, and Ban on Politics

In some groups, it is not a good idea to mock the things or persons that they like or think that it is good. In other places, this might be okay although Your Mileage May Vary on where this would be acceptable, considering that many don't want to deal with the Fan Dumb, Hate Dumb, or any Internet Backdraft involving the mockery. For example: Any religious and political views and individuals are repeatedly mocked, but you should never mock them if they are the majority of a group. In an Anime related forum or circle, it is best not to invoke Animation Age Ghetto or proclaim hatred to anime by itself. And such...