Freudian Excuse/Theatre

"Pity the child who has ambition Knows what he wants to do Knows that he'll never fit the system Others expect him to Pity the child who knew his parents Saw their faults, saw their love die before his eyes Pity a child that wise"
 * Described in "Officer Krupke" in West Side Story, where the Jets sing a mocking song to a (not present) police officer describing various excuses for their misbehavior.
 * Joseph Pitt from Angels in America had a rough relationship with his now-gone father. During a phone conversation with his mother, he asks if his father ever loved him. She dodges the question. When he tells her that he's gay, she snaps that he knows damn well his father never loved him, and that's no excuse for him to be acting up like this.
 * Later on, discussing her son's homosexuality with his wife, she says "...they think it's mothers who are close to their sons that cause this. Well, guess we disproved that theory, he and I."
 * Freddie's song "Pity the Child" in Chess:


 * The actor playing Cox in the stage version of Nation decided to give his character one of these (dead wife and son), as his diary exercise for the character reveals (on page 22).
 * In All Shook Up Matilda has one for the way she acts as mayor.
 * In Chicago, Roxie Hart sings a line in the song Roxie that goes "And the audience loves me. And I love them. And they love me for loving them, And I love them for loving me. And we love each other. That's because none of us got enough love in our childhoods."