Apathetic Citizens: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

But Monopoly is so much fun, I'd hate to blow the game.''|'''[[Phil Ochs]]''', "Outside Of A Small Circle Of Friends"}}

 

* In ''[[Kick-Ass (film)|Kick-Ass]]'', Dave Lizewski states that the reason he became a superhero is because he couldn't stand by as a man got attacked while everyone just watched.

** In the fight that makes him an in-universe [[Memetic Badass]], he even indirectly calls a group of them out on this. Judging from [[So Cool Its Awesome|their reactions]], [[Comically Missing the Point|they didn't quite get it.]]

* In ''[[Last Action Hero]]'', the main antagonist is a criminal from a stereotypical movie universe where the good guys always win and the bad guys never kill innocent bystanders while on the rampage. When he finds himself in the real world late one night he asks a random bystander for some help "testing a theory." When the bystander approaches he pulls out a gun and shoots him dead, then loudly announces "I've just killed a man!" To which someone angrily hollers back from the windows overhead for him to shut up so they can sleep. The villain is overjoyed.

* Pick a disaster movie. Any one. Chances are, whatever country/town/area is going to be hit by a tidal wave or storm or what have you will completely ignore the multiple warnings of the [[Only Sane Man]], to the point of getting ''annoyed'' by said warnings. And then, of course, they almost all die.

** The severe lack of 'island savvy' is commented upon by some of the characters, who then go off later and do exactly what they warned other people not to do. Basically, not wander through the jungle alone because there be monsters. Of course, the characters are aware they should not even be alive in the first place (it was a nasty crash) but still...

* Lampshaded on ''[[Lexx]]'':

* In the ''[[Burn Notice]]'' episode ''False Flag'', Michael saves a woman from being hit by a car, but nobody else in the street even reacts.

* In an episode of ''[[M*A*S*H|Mash]]'', Hawkeye, in attempting to demonstrate the apathy of the camp, makes a bet with Trapper that he could walk into lunch stark naked and no one would notice. He was only foiled because a soldier did notice and dropped his tray loudly enough to get people's attention.

* Eliot Aronson, an eminent psychologist cites another, lesser-known case of a woman called Eleanor Bradley in his book ''The Social Animal'' after mentioning Genovese. Bradley, while shopping on the Fifth Avenue, fell and broke her leg; she lied on the street for forty minutes, and people just passed her by until somebody finally helped. Aronson suggests that an important factor in this case was that people were able to leave the situation. He cites an experiment where someone pretended to faint in a subway car; he received help in 95% of the cases.

* In one of his routines, Australian comedian Adam Hills described being caught in a delay on the London Underground: Several tubes had to be stopped for at least three quarters of an hour, due to a possible bomb scare. not long after the 2005 bombings. The commuters' reactions? Mild annoyance at the delay.

** Irish comedian Dara O'Briain tells a similar joke in regards to both the July London Bombings and the London Olympics:

* Similarly, Israel is sometimes referred to as the only country in the world, where a group of young men with machine guns can walk into a bank and they're expected to wait in line. Subverted, in that they have to be uniformed soldiers (due to universal conscription there's quite a few of them running about the place).

** Israel has its occasional inversions of this trope. Upon seeing a situation that can be resolved with application of overwhelming force (such as say, a terrorist attack involving something other than a suicide bomber), off duty soldiers that just so happened to be in the area have been known to intervene with lethal efficiency.

** Said 5000 years were mostly ruled by people considering themselves (and by the people) God's emissaries on Earth (and if you remember, Europeans tend to have the same kind of apathy regarding people like this, until the 18th century waves of revolutions). This was just one man, aided by the Americans, in an Arab country. Completely different situation if you think about it.

* This trope is one (but not the only) of the causes of the [[Karma Houdini]] existence in [[Real Life]], because is far easier to do nothing and just whine about bad people instead of trying to do something about them.

* Averted in the case of Brandon Wright; the Utah motorcyclist ended up trapped beneath a burning car after a collision. A dozen strangers came over and worked together to lift the car, pull him to safety, and fetch fire extinguishers.

* This trope is sadly common in child abuse cases. Many times, a neighbor or even a relative, sometimes more than one, will report knowing that the abuse was happening and even say they actually ''wanted'' to do something. This is after the child is dead.

* Strange example from ''[[The Mask (animation)|The Mask]]'' animated series. It had an episode where Stanley became an astronaut. When his space shuttle is about to crash, the people panicked except for one guy who simply walked away uninterested with his arms crossed.

* Played for Laughs in episode of ''[[Darkwing Duck (animation)|Darkwing Duck]]'', "Stressed to Kill" where the people seemed apathetic to the crimes. On the top of that, they eventually allowed themselves to be robbed by Quackerjack and Megavolt. It is because they make them relaxed.

'''Citizen:''' So, like, what's your point? }}

* One episode of one of the ''[[Care Bears]]'' television series had the eponymous characters and their cousins visit a literally gray town filled with apathetic people who didn't care about the miserable state of their surrounding or the kind actions offered. It's later revealed to be a [[Fisher Kingdom]] under the spell of a nearby gem, causing the the Care bears and their cousins to slowly lose their color and become increasingly non-caring. In the end, it is destroyed just before the characters succumb to its effects and everything becomes happy and cheerful again.