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Bulletproof Vest (view source)

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{{quote|'''Artemus Gordon''': If I may make one last request...that she aim for my heart -- the heart that loved this country so much...<br />
'''Loveless''': [[Dangerously Genre Savvy|...shoot him in the head.]]<br />
'''Artemus Gordon''': ''(under his breath)'' [[Oh Crap|Damn!]]|''[[Wild Wild West (Filmfilm)|Wild Wild West]]''}}
 
They cost about $600. They can save your life. Few non-military/police heroes ever wear one, unless they are a major character and it is dramatically required that they get shot. Then [[Unspoken Plan Guarantee|we're not told about it in advance and they'll look dead for a few moments.]]
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And don't forget, when someone does get shot when wearing a vest, has been mistaken for dead, gets emotionalized over and then sits up with a bewildered look on their face, they will always, ALWAYS part their shirt to reveal the vest, usually with bullets showing in it.
 
When bullets are stopped by things that cover very little area in addition to being unlikely to be effective if hit, yet do so by sheer force of sentimentality, that's a [[Pocket Protector]]. [[Bulletproof Human Shield]] is the trope when bullets are stopped by an unwilling [[Mook]] or bystander. If a vest is worn by a [[Badass in Aa Nice Suit]], it will overlap with [[Waistcoat of Style]].
 
{{examples}}
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* [[Gunsmith Cats|Bean Bandit's]] famous armoured jacket seems to be multiple layers of Kevlar wrapped in leather, possibly reinforced with metal. It nearly breaks one character's foot when she accidentally pushed it off a dresser. It'll stop just about anything short of a point-blank assault rifle.
** The same applies to his ''headband''.
* [[Desert Punk (Mangamanga)|Desert Punk]] uses quite a bit of armor.
* Kirei Kotomine in ''[[Fate Zero (Literature)|Fate /Zero]]'' is shown to have bullet-proof priest robes (they're reinforced with Kevlar), which shows just how [[Crazy Prepared]] he is for hunting enemy magi.
 
 
== Comic Books ==
* Most modern incarnations of [[Batman (Comic Book)|Batman]] have him wear batsuits that are essentially advanced suits of lightweight armor that also allow him to be as nimble as he ever is. Furthermore, in the classic comic, ''[[Batman]]: [[The Dark Knight Returns]]'', the yellow ellipse bat chest symbol is explained as a psychological lure for criminals to shoot at his heavy chest armor and away from his head. Why he tends to wear a similarly bright yellow belt has never been explained.
** In the [[The Golden Age of Comic Books|Golden Age]] Batman story "The Curse of the Four Fates," one of the criminals has been told that "Metal will still your beating heart." He naturally dons a protective vest. {{spoiler|But he's forgotten that he has a bullet lodged in his chest from an earlier shooting. A strong blow against the vest dislodges the old bullet and drives it into his heart.}}
** Another [[The Golden Age of Comic Books|Golden Age]] story plays with this trope. Batman and Robin remember a case of three brothers who wore steel chainmail vests. {{spoiler|The Dynamic Duo fight one brother in a junkyard. He's hoisted by an electromagnet and killed when dropped on scrap metal as a goon unwittingly shut it off. A later fight at the docks has the second brother drown; the vest made him too heavy to float. The last brother, who wanted to go straight when the others found him, left the gang. He died when he took his vest off to connect downed powerlines to help an emergency surgery and was gunned down by a vengeful goon. Batman and Robin acknowledge the last brother's good nature before he dies.}}
** Yet another [[The Golden Age of Comic Books|Golden Age]] story Batman comic subverts this trope. {{spoiler|Batman is shot by a one-time villain who has a Napoleon complex and tries to conquer the world using a dirigible equipped with death rays. Batman escapes and is later seen nursing a wound from where he was shot. He even comments he lost a lot of blood.}}
** Batman's armour is indeed very powerful (he takes a shot to the head from a sniper in [[Batman: No Man's Land (Comic Book)|No Man's Land]] ''on purpose''), but it also has the flexibility of simple cloth fabric.
* Marvel's [[Punisher]] originally used a similar trick, wearing heavy body-armor with a white skull that drew attention - and fire - away from his head (not to mention that the symbol's "teeth" section is a handy place to have ammo clips). Later incarnations are simply too [[Badass]] to die.
** Spoofed with his parody Frank Casket (nom de guerre: the Pulveriser) in the parody comic ''What The''.
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* In ''[[Back to The Future]]'', Doc Brown gets shot up at the beginning of the movie. After Marty [[Time Travel|time travels]] back to the 1955, he keeps trying to warn him, but Doc refuses, citing the integrity of the space-time continuum. Marty travels back to the present... just in time to see Doc get shot again. Marty runs over, mourning him... but, of course, Doc finally took the warning, and was wearing a Bullet Proof Vest. In the third movie, [[Genre Savvy]] Marty hides a stove door under his shirt to survive a gun duel, in homage to ''A Fistful of Dollars.''
** The stove piece is actual Truth in Television. During the era of the Wild West outlaws and sheriffs would occasionally don makeshift vests, and "iron shirt" if they heard an enemy was in town. The armor was typically the strongest flattest piece of steel or iron around, the back plate of a stove happened to be the perfect shape for this.
* In ''[[Snakes Onon a Plane]]'', the witness is wearing a bulletproof vest, which later comes in handy.
* Subverted in ''[[Wild Wild West (Filmfilm)|Wild Wild West]]'' as quoted above; played straight by his partner who is shot in the chest but survives because of the vest sewn into his clothes without his knowledge. Note that Loveless isn't actually [[Dangerously Genre Savvy]]; he's just a jackass.
* ''[[Lethal Weapon]]'' series
** In ''[[Lethal Weapon]]'' Riggs is apparently killed during a drive-by shooting and does the "vest reveal" bit to explain his survival.
** In ''[[Lethal Weapon]] 3'', the plot revolves around the sale of "cop killer" bullets that pierce through police armor. In one scene, a character survives by simply wearing ''two'' vests on top of each other.
*** Made more baffling by the fact that earlier in the same scene the bullets are shown shooting through the front plate of a bulldozer. The bullets are also demonstrated by being fired into a vest hung on a stand. The bullet easily passes through both the front and back sides of the hanging vest, thus proving the bullets could easily penetrate a double thickness of vest.
* In ''[[Kick-Ass (Filmfilm)|Kick-Ass]]'', [[Training From Hell|the introductory scene for Big Daddy and Hit Girl]]. Later she mentions that she wears kevlar all the way down to her underwear.
* A fantasy version appears in ''[[Lord of the Rings]]'', in the Mines of Moria. Frodo appears to be fatally stabbed by a cave troll, but soon after reveals that he's wearing an impenetrable shirt of [[Mithril]] beneath his coat. This also happens in the book, though he is stabbed by an orc and suffers a greater injury from the impact.
* The film ''[[Missing in Action]]'' features an on-the-run [[Chuck Norris]] buying a large raft-like speedboat made from "the same stuff that [[Bullet Proof Vests]] are made of". The salesman demonstrates this by getting into his handy-dandy rotating turret machine gun and putting a few hundred rounds into it, not getting a scratch on it. In reality, some boats are made from such material, but are hardly bulletproof. [[Chuck Norris]] heroically steals the super-boat by [[Ballistic Discount|holding up the salesman with his own turret gun]] and forcing him to accept a nominal sum.
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* In ''[[Battle Royale]]'', one student is gunned down by Kiriyama and collapses, apparently dead. The moment Kiriyama's out of sight, however, the victim jumps to his feet and gleefully declares that he's been saved by his awesome bulletproof vest. It turns out that Kiriyama was hiding nearby while stalking someone else; he hears this and uses a katana to slice the student's head off. Kiriyama then puts on the bulletproof vest, which somehow protects him from being stabbed.
** In the manga this is treated reasonably well, in that when hit with a shotgun (at long range) it hurts quite a bit, the wearer obviously bleeding through the ruined vest. One scene earlier on when the vest takes a close range shot with a .45 caliber revolver with no effect is a little less defensible.
* In ''[[Starship Troopers (Filmfilm)|Starship Troopers]]'', the troopers are in a live-fire exercise. When one of the characters is complaining that his helmet isn't working, the squad leader, without permission, tells him to take it off. In the process, a robot sniper (which are shooting laser beams, not fatal) shoots at another character, who then accidentally tightens their grip and [[Shur Fine Guns|shoots the other character]] (who has removed his helmet), [[I Just Shot Marvin in Thethe Face|blowing his head off]].
* Subverted in ''[[Iron Man (Filmfilm)|Iron Man]]'': Stark is near an exploding shell and gets knocked to the ground, seemingly dead. Then, in standard trope fashion he tears open his shirt to reveal his vest. And ''then'' blood begins oozing from the holes punched in his vest by the high-velocity shrapnel.
* ''[[Batman Begins]]'' establishes that the Batman's suit is a $300k body armor, so it's somewhat justified that it works pretty well. In ''[[The Dark Knight]]'', Bruce asks Fox to redesign the suit to be more resistant to dog bites, realistically showing a common weakness in ballistic armor. In ''[[The Dark Knight]]''. {{spoiler|Gordon takes a bullet for the mayor while wearing a standard kevlar vest and is injured badly enough [[Faking the Dead|to convince everyone he's dead]]. He's away for some time before coming back into action.}}
* In the beginning of ''[[Alien Nation (TV series)|Alien Nation]]'', Sykes and his partner interrupt an armed robbery. One crook starts shooting a shotgun at the partner, who's not only wearing a bullet proof vest but is also crouched behind a car. With all that protection he should be safe, right? The shotgun's shots go right through the car ''and'' the guy's vest, killing him. Sykes later finds out the shotgun was firing special armor piercing slugs. Later, Sykes gets a gigantic revolver and puts a kevlar vest over his shooting range target, blowing holes straight through it.
* In ''[[Training Day]]'', where one of the crooked cops is shot in the bulletproof vest in order to set up a crime scene. Unfortunately, they realize a few seconds later that some bullets got through the vest. Since Alonzo is a dick, he insists they finish getting their stories straight before doing anything about it.
* In ''[[Assassins (Filmfilm)|Assassins]]'' (1995), the villain Rath thinks he's killed a man who turns out to have faked his death. The man knew where Rath would be shooting from and with what weapon, so he wore a vest capable of stopping the bullet. A bulletproof glass divider in a taxi cab later provides a realistic [[Gunpoint Banter]] moment.
* In ''Lucky Number Slevin'', {{spoiler|Lindsey}} appears to have been shot and killed by Goodkat, but it turns out she knew he was coming for her, and was wearing a bullet proof vest and a couple of blood packs for protection. Justified, in that Goodkat thought she would be unprotected and was using relatively small calibre ammunition, and in that {{spoiler|Lindsey}} was very, very sore afterwards.
* ''[[Shooter]]''. FBI agent Nick Memphis is shot by a sniper, then (after Bob Lee counter-snipes the shooter) gets up and removes a steel trauma plate from under his overcoat, saying "I think I broke a rib." Snipers aim for center of mass, especially at such ranges, so Memphis must have relied on the professional sniper being able to hit him accurately.
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** Also when the protagonists are driving a car which has been bulletproofed, the only problem is that they can't wind down the windows to shoot back at the [[Big Bad]] who's firing at them.
* ''Gomorrah'' (2008). Children applying to join a Camorra clan are made to wear a heavy bulletproof vest which is then shot, to test their courage.
* Played straight in ''[[District 9 (Film)|District 9]]''. Wikus is hit while [[Storming the Castle|infiltrating MNU]]. After he kills the offending shooter (leading to a [[Crowning Moment of Funny]]), he looks at the bullets left in his vest.
* The final battle scene in ''[[Mr. and Mrs. Smith]]'' has both protagonists take multiple bursts from submachine guns and close-range rocket strikes and they suffer almost no ill effects whatsoever. These vests are borderline [[Pocket Protector|Pocket Protectors]] as neither character takes any hits to their arms or legs.
* In the beginning of ''[[Predator]] 2'', Danny Glover armors his car by hanging kevlar vests over the side windows.
* In ''The Evil That Men Do'' Charles Bronson shoots a CIA man with a shotgun, only for him to get up again. This time Bronson shoots him in the face.
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'''Mac''': Thanks, Chief! }}
* Near the end of ''[[Death Wish 3]]'', the gang leader had a bullet proof after Paul shot a full round of bullets at him. When he points the gun at the chief, Paul grabs the mini bazooka and fires at him.
* Subverted in ''[[Epoch Evolution|Epoch: Evolution]]'', where the mercenary leader shoots {{spoiler|Tower}} twice in the stomach. When asked about the bullets, he replies that his vest only stopped one. Realizing that they won't be able to get him medical attention, {{spoiler|Tower}} asks to be read [[The Bible (Literature)|The Bible]] one last time. He dies from bleeding a few minutes later.
* ''[[The Avengers (1998 (Filmfilm)|The Avengers 1998]]''. After Mrs. Peel's clone shoots him, Steed reveals that his Trubshaw waistcoat is bulletproof.
* [[Lampshaded]] in ''[[Dumb and Dumber]]'' when Harry is shot by the villain, gets up and reveals the vest, and Lloyd immediately asks "What if he shot you in the face?" The cops blithely respond that that was a risk they were willing to take.
* In ''[[In the Line of Fire]]'', Frank takes a bullet for the President, but survives as he was wearing a bulletproof vest. However, he does get a few cracked ribs.
* ''[[Goldfinger (Film)|Goldfinger]]''. When Bond is at Q Branch a man wearing an overcoat is shot with a machine gun. He opens the overcoat, revealing a bulletproof vest - it was being tested under fire, as it were.
* In ''[[The DevilsDevil's Rejects]]'' opening shootout scene, {{spoiler|Sheriff Wydell}} takes either a shot from a rifle, shotgun, or revolver to his vest outside his uniform. It merely knocks him back slightly. He looks pissed, shakes it off and keeps up with his assault. Some of the Fireflys themselves wear homemade full body armor out of sheets of metal, complete with helmet. This might be based on the historical Kelly Gang's homemeade armor.
* Several characters in ''[[The Adventures of Pluto Nash]]'' wear bulletproof undershirts under their clothing. These include Pluto himself, {{spoiler|the robot Bruno}}, and {{spoiler|[[Big Bad|Rex Crater]]}}.
* V in ''[[V for Vendetta]]'' wears an armor plate under his clothing when confronting [[The Dragon|Creedy]] and his men. He lets them unload their clips in him and then proceeds to slaughter them all while they're reloading with his [[Knife Nut|knives]]. However, it is revealed that some of the bullets did penetrate the armor, and {{spoiler|he dies not long after}}.
* The cops at the beginning of ''[[The One (Filmfilm)|The One]]'' wear body armor that appears to be impenetrable to small arms. The first slo-mo scene shows [[Jet Li]]'s character picking up a cop and using him as a [[Bulletproof Human Shield]] against the other cops firing rifles at full auto with all bullets bouncing off his back armor. The cop is shown to be hurt (with all the impacts still doing plenty of internal damage) but alive. Their helmet visors, though, aren't that strong. This is quite obviously not our universe, though (the guns have more electronics in them and Gore is the president).
* In the ''[[Richie Rich]]'' movie, one of Professor Keenbean's inventions is a spray that makes clothes bulletproof (not to mention stain-proof and waterproof). Which comes in handy for Richie when the [[Big Bad]] tries to shoot him near the end of the film.
* ''[[Raw Deal (Film)|Raw Deal]]''. A mafia hit squad decides to murder a rival mob boss by running their car off the road. When [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]] (playing an undercover cop posing as a [[Professional Killer]]) points out the limo is heavier than their vehicle, the leader replies: "Not if you shoot the driver." Cue an [[Oh Crap]] moment when the bullets are seen bouncing off window glass marked BULLET RESISTANT.
* in ''[[Saving Private Ryan]]'', a soldier's helmet is grazed by a bullet, he takes it off to gape at the hole... and gets a second bullet in the forehead. To be fair, though, the second bullet would have killed him anyway, seeing as how WWII (and modern) helmets primarily protected against fragmentation.
* Subverted in ''[[Three Days of the Condor]]''. A CIA clerk who is a friend of the protagonist Turner is asked to help bring him in for debriefing and is issued a bulletproof vest "just in case". In reality the meeting is a set-up to kill Turner -- when it goes wrong the wounded killer aims carefully and [[You Know Too Much|shoots the clerk in the throat]].
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== Literature ==
* In ''[[Artemis Fowl (Literature)|Artemis Fowl]]: The Eternity Code'', Butler is shot point-blank while wearing a Kevlar vest. {{spoiler|He dies. But he gets better.}} Justified, since as Artemis' bodyguard he has to be constantly prepared for danger. Also, the I printed on the inside (As in FBI) imprints on his chest.
** And played straight in a new way, as saving him caused the Kevlar fibers from the vest end up replicated through his chest - which are ''immediately'' pointed out by the medic to provide practically no value as armor, and will in fact for the rest of Butler's life permanently hamper his breathing and movement.
* In a couple of [[Urban Fantasy]] [[Mercedes Lackey]] books, the hero has not just a vest, but a bodysuit made out of dragon scales. These resist cutting, will stop bullets, and also have some protection against magic, but he can still be crushed through them.
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* In [[Sandy Mitchell]]'s [[Warhammer 40000]] [[Ciaphas Cain]] novel ''For The Emperor'', [[Anti-Magic|Gunner Ferik Jurgen]] proves that imperial guard armor is not as useless as some people say: His helmet allows him to survive ''a bolter<ref>miniature rocket-propelled grenade</ref> shot to the head'', though it's made clear that a second shot would have [[Your Head Asplode|killed]] him (the helmet is destroyed). Granted, it was stormtrooper Carapace armor, not standard-issue Flak armor.
* In the [[Adam Hall]] spy novel ''[[Quiller|Quiller's Run]]'' the protagonist runs into a problem when he wears an anti-knife vest to a confrontation with a villainess who, up till now, has used knives -- only she [[Oh Crap|pulls out a revolver]] and blasts him six times in the chest. Fortunately the vest still stops the bullets.
** So, basically, she [[Never Bring a Knife Toto A Fist Fight|brought a gun to a knife-fight]], eh?
* In the Harry Turtledove [[Alternate History]] novel ''The Guns of the South'' a Confederate soldier is surprised when one of the time travellers survives a musket ball to the chest because of what he calls a 'flak jacket'.
* Bubushka's life is saved twice by the bulletproof corset she wears under in her clothes in the [[Young Bond]] novel ''By Royal Command''.
* In the Alex Rider book ''Snakehead'', Ash reveals that his entire team was wearing bulletproof vests, and the mission completely went wrong because when Yassen shot him in the chest, he got back up. Yassen, being smarter than the average bear, then proceeds to shoot the rest of the team in the head. And then Ask screwed up the mission even more.
* [[The Dresden Files (Literature)|Harry Dresden]] has his [[Badass Longcoat|duster]] enchanted to be very resilient, to the point where the only thing that has penetrated it after enchantment is a shot from a [[wikipedia:Barrett M82|.50 caliber rifle]]. In an aversion, the readers found out that his duster was enchanted pretty early in the book. Played straight with Murphy's reaction to the shot, however.
** {{spoiler|Butters is luckily wearing a conventional vest when he's shot}} in ''Changes''.
** Murphy, a professional [[Action Girl]], never forgets to wear her west when it's time to do some ass kicking. As ''Aftermath'' revealed, working with Dresden has convinced her to also let Charity Carpenter (wife of a modern-day [[Paladin]]) reinforce her vest with ''chainmail'' to deflect bladed weapons.
** Speaking of Ms. Carpenter, in ''Death Masks'', there's some discussion between her husband Michael and fellow Knight of the Cross Sanya, about the latter's use of a Kevlar tactical vest and an AK47, and the former relying on his platemail and sword exclusively. Later on, Michael takes several bullets to the chest and falls out of sight, apparently dead. Later on, he explains that Charity had gone the extra mile on his armor.
{{quote| '''Michael''': My faith protects me. My Kevlar helps.}}
** In ''Small Favor'', {{spoiler|Michael}} is permanently put out of commission when someone shoots him in the lower back and side from below, and his reinforced Kevlar vest ''keeps the bullets from simply exiting on the other side'', causing what the medical help estimated to be far more damage than if he hadn't been wearing a vest in the first place. When [[Jim Butcher]] [[Playing Withwith a Trope|plays with a trope]], he plays ''hard''.
* Burke from [[Andrew Vachss]]'s books often wears Kevlar, but consistently notes that it still hurts to be shot.
* One character in ''[[Battle Royale]]'' gets one of these instead of a weapon, and survives pretty well through [[Faking the Dead]] and the use of a belt as an improvised weapon. {{spoiler|Then the main villain [[Pink Mist|turns his head into "a bowl of sauce" with a machine gun]] and takes the vest for himself.}}
* [[Matthew Reilly]] usually Averts this trope by having most characters wear body armor that don't provide complete protection (bullets mostly go through it). It still gets played straight with the [[Black Knight]]'s utility vests.
* A high-tech version of the bulletproof vest was a plot point in [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]'s ''[[Vorkosigan Saga|Mirror Dance]]''. There's a brief rundown of all the different types of armor available to combat soldiers of the day, from neural netting which protects against energy weapons to [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|plasma mirror shields]]. Unfortunately for Miles, the anti-ballistic chestplate he borrowed was not rated for anti-personnel grenades....
* Toward the end of one of the ''[[Retief (Literature)|Retief]]'' books, Retief's immediate boss Magnan shows up because Retief had notified him of corruption among certain Terran officials. One of the criminals pulls a needler; Magnan demands his surrender, and the man instead shoots. Magnan glances down at the needles sticking out of his chest and sniffs, "I had a feeling this chest armor might be useful in dealing with a bounder of your stripe."
* In the Dick Francis book ''Wild Horses'' the protagonist attempts to protect himself from knife attacks by wearing a jockey's body armor (apparently plastic slabs in some kind of fabric vest) and later by having a doctor make him a removable body cast, complete with throat protection. He survives the attacks, but just barely.
* [[Honor Harrington (Literature)|Honor Harrington]] has to wear specially reinforced clothing because her [[Bond Creature|Sphynxian Treecat]] tends to ride around on her shoulders, using his rather long and sharp claws to maintain his grip. The special fabric, while strong, ''won't'' stop a Pulser Dart, the standard ammo used in modern sidearms in that universe (At least, not in anything above the smallest calibers). However, for several of the earlier books, Pulsers are ''not'' [[Abnormal Ammo|common]] [[Cool Gun|weapons]] on the planet [[Space Amish|Grayson]], and the clothing turns out to be at least moderately ''bullet'' resistant when an assassin attempts to kill her--and it helped that [[Taking the Bullet|the bullets were slowed down]] [[Heroic Sacrifice|by someone else's body]] before they hit her. She still looks like hell when she makes it to a very important meeting soon after, but that has slightly more to do with her being in an aircar crash ''before'' she was shot.
** In addition, various more robust forms of armor are seen, ranging from the protective [[Latex Space Suit|skinsuits]] to [[Powered Armor]], and also including robust, low-tech "clamshell" torso armor.
* A few characters wear vests in [[Time Scout (Literature)|Time Scout]]. It's a realistic portrayal in that only one character actually gets shot wearing them and when he does, it's with a handgun, and the force knocks him down and stuns him.
* The nightsilk garments of the ''Corean Chronicles'' series is impact resistant when worn in a skintight outfit, making a body stocking of this material effectively a set of bulletproof underwear. The material is very expensive though, so the reason the hero of the first trilogy can afford to wear it constantly is because his family manufactures it.
* ''[[Fate Zero (Literature)|Fate /Zero]]'' revealed that, in the [[Nasuverse]], Church Executioners wear bullet proof ''priest robes''.
 
 
== Live-Action TV ==
* Rarely seen on [[Blue Bloods]], but whenever Danny wears a vest, it's because he expects trouble, and [[SWAT Team|ESU]] is right behind him.
* Subverted in the finale of season six of ''[[Homicide: Life On the Street]]'', in which Det Bayliss is shot ''through'' his vest.
** Subverted earlier, when Detectives Bolander, Felton, and Howard were all seriously wounded despite their vests, by an insane gun-nut conspiracy theorist who "probably used Teflon bullets".
** In the non-fiction book on which the series is based, one of the detectives was wounded in the line of duty when he was shot through his department issue vest.
* Leo [[Mc Carthy]] from [[FX the Series]] stated that a bulletproof vest would not help against the sniper that he's trying to catch.
* Season two of ''[[Alias (TV series)|Alias]]'', when Jack, Irina and Sydney were in Kashmir. Jack is shot, is knocked to the ground. It turns out he was wearing a bulletproof vest, but he is on top of a [[Land Mine Goes Click|landmine]].
* A very unusual subversion in the ''[[Jonathan Creek (TV)|Jonathan Creek]]'' episode "The Coonskin Cap", in which the police all wear bulletproof vests to persue an armed killer, only for one officer to be ''strangled'' in an [[Locked Room Mystery|empty room]]. Jonathan eventually realises {{spoiler|she was strangled by a device built into the vest itself}}.
* In ''[[Law and& Order (TV)|Law and Order]]'', the featured detectives usually don vests when they have time to prepare for a raid, or a similar dangerous situation on the job.
** The series also subverts it in an episode where a defective military vest that failed to protect its user is a key plot point.
* In ''[[Twin Peaks]]'', Agent Cooper's life is saved by a bullet-proof vest, although he is wounded by one of the bullets because he had pulled the vest up to get at a wood-tick. He describes the experience as "the sensation of having three bowling-balls dropped onto your chest from a height of about nine feet."
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** ''[[CSI New York]]'' has featured Stella Bonasera's low-cut vest on a number of occasions.
** The New York show also had an interesting play with this. In the episode after making shippers' dreams come true by marrying Lindsay, Danny Messer forgets his vest and arrives at a crime scene. Mac and Flack, knowing the suspect is present and has a gun, armour up and go inside, telling Danny to stay by the SUV. There is the sound of gunfire. Danny draws his weapon and goes inside. He exchanges fire with the suspect- and does not get hit. In fact, he mortally wounds the suspect and gets a dying confession.
* Kind of subverted in ''[[Walker, Texas Ranger]]'', where any main character who wears a bulletproof vest will take the shot, recoil, then continue, while any secondary character or redshirt will either have the round penetrate the vest anyway via "cop killer" armor piercing bullets or just get shot in the head instead.
** Played straight (and more realistically) in the last episode of the Chairman arc, when Trivette actually goes down from a shot to the chest. After about a minute of appearing to be dead, he manages to recover and get up. Body armor to the rescue!
* Subverted in cop show ''High Incident'', in which a police officer is fatally shot in the chest with a 9mm pistol, despite wearing a vest. Another officer later examines the vest and comments on its futility.
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* ''[[Firefly]]'' plays this one just about to the letter. During a gunfight in the pilot the second in command goes down hard from what looks to be a shotgun blast and is out for awhile, but later comes to and manages to shoot a fleeing villain. As she's getting up she grunts "Armor's dented" but shows no ill effects and is able to ride a horse back to their ship just fine.
** The [[The Movie|Big Damn Movie]] plays with this later on. When Mal confronts the Operative, the Operative tells him that he's unarmed. Mal shoots him, turns around to leave, and is jumped from behind. The Operative is of course wearing full body armor; he is ''not'' a moron.
* ''[[NCIS (TV)|NCIS]]'' uses this, one hopes, in combination with a big ol' pack of fake blood, to convince a suspectedly traitorous agent that a militia leader is well and truly serious. {{spoiler|But only the most bastardly of writers would [[Like You Would Really Do It|dare to kill off Leroy Jethro Gibbs]] in so ignominious a fashion. Though admittedly, it was shocking.}}
** ''NCIS'' also toys with this trope in the season 2 finale when Kate [[Taking the Bullet|takes a bullet]] for Gibbs, protected by her bulletproof vest. The characters spend some time joking about it, {{spoiler|until Kate is shot in the head}}.
* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' In "Smoke and Mirrors," when Senator Kinsey is shot by a sniper. Anticipating the attack, he was wearing a bulletproof vest that saved his life... though the shot still dropped him like a sack of hammers, and necessitated that he be hospitalized and operated upon.
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** Later, in "There's No Place Like Home," {{spoiler|Richard shoots Keamy several times at close range, and Keamy appears dead, but it turns out his body armor saved his life.}}
*** He was still pretty fucked up by it, whereas Charlotte is no worse for wear.
* Knife variant: In the second season ''[[The Man Fromfrom UNCLEU.N.C.L.E.]]'' episode "Alexander the Greater Affair, Part II", the titular villain Alexander moves to complete his plot by stabbing the premier of an Asian country at a diplomatic reception, the first step in a coup attempt. The premier, knife sticking in his chest, falls off the dais onto a cart and cake as the U.N.C.L.E. agents rush into the room to apprehend Alexander. It is then that the premier rises from the cart, and reveals that, having been warned of the murder attempt, he was wearing body armor that saved him.
* Subverted in ''[[The Shield]]'', when Shane is shot through a door during a raid, while wearing a kevlar vest. He is knocked down by the impact, and sustains heavy bruising from the impact (it's noted in the show that the door slowed down the bullet, which prevented him from sustaining broken ribs on top of the bruising).
* In an early episode of ''[[Super Sentai|Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger]]'', Commander Doggie "Boss" Kruger is shot right as he returns home from an off-world Deka meeting by [[Monster of the Week]] Gigantes (AKA [[Hoji/Deka Blue|Deka Blue]]'s old friend Vino), immediately after Hoji realizes what Gigantes was up to. Fortunately, he was wearing a [[Bulletproof Vest]] and survived little less for wear (it's implied that Hoji warned Swam about Gigantes and she alerted Doggie just in time), though considering how he's shown to be [[Made of Iron]] in later episodes, one wonders if he really needed it...
* One episode in ''True Blue'' had two criminals rob a bank wearing full body armor, requiring the police forces to use a high-powered rifle to take down one of the criminals.
* The sequence in ''[[Twenty Four|24]]'' where Jack was forced to shoot Nina. She had fortunately been given a bulletproof vest before hand. Tony Almeida's line asking why this had happened (when he saw the giving on CCTV) was one that many a fan would ask when she was revealed to be [[The Mole]]. She did receive some bad bruising from being shot, though, giving the writers a reason for her to examine herself and thus a [[Lingerie Scene]]. In addition, Jack was shot while wearing a vest in season four, where he and Secretary Of Defense James Heller are trapped behind a vehicle while terrorists are shooting at them. Once hit (in the shoulder), Jack exclaims that he's fine, and then keeps shooting.
** Subverted in Season 8. Jack is shot by an assault rifle while wearing a bullet-proof vest. The impact knocks him down, and temporarily unconscious. Renee Walker and a field medic are both worried that it may have broken a few ribs, or even collapsed a lung. Whether or not it did, Jack insists that he's "fine".
* An episode of [[Crossing Jordan]] subverts the vest's effectiveness. A cop died when he got shot. {{spoiler|The bullet bounced around inside his body because it couldn't penetrate the vest}}.
* Averted in Flashpoint: {{spoiler|Jules}} gets shot with by a sniper, and nearly dies. Averted again in the Season 3 finale, when {{spoiler|Ed}} is shot several times while wearing a vest and has to be hospitalized.
** Played straight in the same show, in the episode First in Line, Lou is shot by the subject, and the bullet does little more than make him sit out the rest of the episode.
* ''[[The X -Files]]''. Mulder is infiltrating a secret government lab when he's spotted by the [[The Men in Black|Gray-Haired Man]] who opens fire on him, but the bullets are stopped by a bullet-resistant glass door. However the Gray-Haired Man contines to fire, blasting a hole in the glass and them shooting through that -- fortunately Mulder is able to get through the next door in time.
** In "Young At Heart" Scully is shot by a criminal during a sting operation, but she's saved by a hidden vest.
* Mocked on ''[[Reno 911]]''. The ladies are all issued new vests in the form of Kevlar [[Of Corset Sexy|corsets]]. Pleased with the amount of attention they're getting, they just pin their badge to the vest itself and go out on patrol. They're loving it until, on a drunken dare, Junior shoots at Kimball and it goes right through the vest like butter.
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* ''[[The District]]'': Sgt Brander wears one when he's shot by a panicked driver during a routine traffic stop, due to a rapist [[Impersonating an Officer]] in the episode. Unlike many shows, though, they skip the part about ripping open the outer shirt to reveal the vest, which is only mentioned after the fact in a "he would've been dead if..." comment.
* In [[Family Matters]], the bulletproof vest which Eddie wears during his beginnings as a police officer had its abilities accurately portrayed.
* In the third season of ''[[Farscape (TV)|Farscape]]'', it's revealed that [[Magnificent Bastard|Scorpius]], on top of being [[Made of Iron]], wears body armour under his gimp suit. This leads to a rather interesting scene in which Crichton uses him as an [[Bulletproof Human Shield|invincible human shield]] while trading smartass remarks with him:
{{quote| That's some damn nice set of body armour! Does that come in blue?}}
* Used commonly and (more or less) sensibly in ''[[Bones]]''. Expect the characters to break them out whenever Booth is raiding something.
* In ''[[The Lost Room]]'' miniseries, the Coat is now shown to have any special powers. However, since it's an Object and is, therefore, indestructible, it can be used as a bulletproof vest, although it still hurts like hell, and you can probably still die from internal bleeding. After all, it does nothing to spread the impact of the bullet.
* [[Played With]] in the ''[[Smallville]]'' episode ''Shield''. Clark catches a bullet just before it can hit Cat Grant, then proceeds to imbed it into her vest while pretending to tackle her to the ground, allowing him to save her life without revealing his superpowers.
* ''[[Rookie Blue (TV)|Rookie Blue]]'' has two incidents where officers wearing vests are shot, leaving bruising and broken ribs. Hence played fairly realistically.
* Depicted very realistically in ''[[Person of Interest]]''.
* A rare lapse of realism in ''[[Forbrydelsen]]'' {{spoiler|in the second-season finale. Lund gets shot '''three times at point-blank range''' while faking [[Exposition Victim]] to bait the murderer, and five minutes later is mobile enough to knock them out from behind.}}
* Raylan gets one in the vest in an early episode of ''[[Justified]]''. He's in some pain, but still manages to gun down the shooter. Afterwards he's coughing up blood.
* ''[[MacGyver]]'': In "The Coltons" we learn that both Frank and Jesse wear these: a fact that saves their lives.
* The ''[[Criminal Minds (TV)|Criminal Minds]]'' team suit up in Kevlar vests [[Once an Episode]].
* Subverted in ''Lost''. Ben shoots Charlotte and she is saved by her vest. Despite this, she is knocked unconscious, suffers extreme injuries from the impact and is in a lot of pain from getting hit with a bullet.
 
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** Very little protects you against Assault Cannons. Be happy that only one model has a semi auto or full auto mode, and you have to beat a ''very'' skilled military unit to get one without '''lots''' of nuyen.
* The bullet proof vests available in ''[[GURPS]]'' do not inspire confidence, but they can make the difference between dead and dying.
* Flak vests (and flak helmets, jackets, pants, and suits in the expanded 2nd and 3rd editions) are the most widely available armor in the ''[[Mechwarrior]]'' tabletop role playing game and are actually reasonably useful against most of the common weapons a player character might face, such as slugthrower pistols and melee weapons. Once lasers and other exotic weapons come into play (particularly [[Kill It Withwith Fire|flamers]] and [[Flechette Storm|heavy needlers]], basic flak armor generally falls by the wayside for something sturdier.
 
 
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* All the ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' games have body armor that act as a second health bar. Depending on the game, it won't protect you from drowning, hunger, car explosions (while inside them) and high falls.
* ''[[Splinter Cell]]: Chaos Theory'' actually plays this quite realistically; if Sam triggers two or more alarms, guards will don body armor and helmets. While the armor is relatively effective against his rifle and renders his pistol practically useless except for headshots below the helmets' brims, his knife goes straight through their armor, and his nonlethal unarmed attacks, which aim for the base of the skull or nose, still knock enemies unconscious.
* Just like in real life, kevlar armors in ''[[Counter-Strike (Video Game)|Counter-Strike]]'' do little more than increasing your firefight life expectancy from 2 seconds to 3 seconds. Kevlar helmets, meanwhile, are only effective against pistols and ''maybe'' against 5.56 mm rifles.
** See [http://www.schuzak.jp/other/dmgchart.html this list] for all weapons stats.
* In the ''X-COM'' games unarmoured soldiers will [[Redshirt Army|die with disgusting ease]]. Personal Armour and even Power Armour is available but by the time it's in use, most aliens are packing weapons which will still inflict lethal damage no matter how heavy the armour, and mobile nightmare objects the [[Demonic Spiders|Chryssalids]] ignore armour anyway.
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** The final boss of the second game is equipped with [[Nigh Invulnerable]] full body armor that is apparently impervious to even grenade blasts and doesn't seem to slow him down (impossible).
* In [[Metal Gear Solid|Metal Gear Solid 2]] Raiden's sword easily damages Solidus Snake through his armored suit, although the sword is, itself, made of [[Applied Phlebotinum|Phlebotinum.]] [[Metal Gear Solid|Metal Gear Solid 4]] gives {{spoiler|Raiden some karmic payback;}} the non-metal parts of his armor don't stop Vamp's blades. Minutes before is a subversion, if a thin one; Old Snake, unseen by the enemy, takes the time to line up a perfect shot with his M4 on {{spoiler|Vamp's un-armored}} head. His shot hits dead-center in the forehead, but {{spoiler|Vamp, effectively immortal,}} spins around once as a startled reaction to the momentum, lands on one knee, ''catches his cell phone from falling'' to finish talking, gives his troops an order, and then informs them he'll be "taking a nap" before falling over dead. He re-animates shortly thereafter.
* A good number of ''[[Mega Man X (Video Game)|Mega Man X]]'' games feature body armor that gives 50% damage reduction, but not invincibility. It started in the ''X'' series, and in some games gave a new weapon, but later spread out into the other series.
* The Rainbow Six franchise plays the bullet proof vest trope fairly realistically, even in the more action oriented games, such as Vegas. Light body armor will not save a player from most types of gunfire, and armor that can reliably stop bullets is bulky and slows the wearer down.
* A certain type of soldier in ''[[Blake Stone]]: Aliens of Gold'' wears a bullet-proof vest; the machine-gun-like guns are the only weapons that can hurt them. And even then, the first burst only knocks them down, and you have to wait until they get up to finish them off. Makes you wonder what ''Blake's'' wearing...
* Huge, heavy, and customized battle armor is worn by both Rios and Salem in ''[[Army of Two]].''
** Which also includes steel masks to protect the face.
* Nobody in [[Yo -Jin -Bo]] wears armor, except for {{spoiler|Mon-Mon}}, who wears chain mail under his clothes. {{spoiler|He uses it to survive [[Taking the Bullet|several kunai in the back]].}}
* [[Resident Evil|Rebecca Chambers]] wears one which effectively stops a bullet, but is otherwise realistically useless against the monster slashing slaws. The fifth game plays with this by allowing different types of armor for gunshots and knife attacks.
* ''7.62 High Calibre'' has several types of armor and helmets available. The first one available, the M200 Concealable Vest, is stated as being suitable for stopping small caliber ammunition. Unfortunately, 50% of the bandits you're likely to run across are carrying sawed-off Mosin Nagants, which fire a (admittedly slower velocity) 7.62mm rifle round, meaning the vest is almost worthless. Later vests are slightly better at stopping higher caliber ammunition, and can include ceramic or titanium inserts for better protection (ceramic is stronger, but breaks after a few shots, while titanium is weaker, but more durable). There's also a game setting that can be toggled on so that vests actually provide full body protection. Otherwise, in addition to considering how heavy and protective a vest is, you also have to take into account just how much of your body that vest actually covers.
* In ''[[Alpha Protocol]]'', bulletproof vests are generic sources of [[Hit Point|Hit Points]], which also block knives and fists and explosions. You can also convince {{spoiler|Ronald Sung}} to wear a bulletproof vest if you uncover a plan to assassinate him. Doing so {{spoiler|will save him from being killed by a sniper with a high-powered rifle, which makes one wonder just how much kevlar was in that vest.}}
* ''[[The Godfather (Videovideo Gamegame)|The Godfather]] 2'' has bulletproof vests as a reward for completing the diamond smuggling crime ring. They only reduce damage and don't guard the head or limbs.
* ''SWAT 4'' has you and your team wear light Kevlar vests and helmets by default, and the expansion pack allows you to use Heavy or even no armor in multiplayer. Suspects get armor too in some missions, but due to the game being big on realism, said body armors are only marginally effective in most situations.
 
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== Web Original ==
* Subverted for the most part in [[Survival of the Fittest]]; while bullet proof vests appear rather often they tend to be treated very realistically, and indeed, in many instances have been no use at all - the foe of the vest's owner just aims for the head for the most part or the vest just has no effect. However, this is also played straight in the case of Shannon McLocke, who takes a close range shotgun blast to the chest and gets up with barely a scratch. Bobby Jacks also takes a carbine round to the chest and gets up relatively unharmed a minute or two later in v3, but the carbine used weak enough ammunition for this to be justified.
* In [[The Return (Fanficfanfic)|The Return]] Darkstar's [[Friendly Neighborhood Vampires|Brood]] are eventually convinced to replace their [[Stripperiffic]] [http://florestica.com/jtemple/art/return/ds02.jpg outfits] with more [http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y44/sunshinetemple/FanArt_not_on_site/Ranma_new-armor2.jpg sensible ones] with bullet proofing.
* Subverted in a ''[[Homestar Runner|Cheat Commandos]]'' toon, where Gunhaver shoots Flashfight playfully, falsely believing that the latter is wearing a bulletproof vest that they were playing around with at the beginning of the toon.
 
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* Who could forget Duck Dodgers' Disintegration-Proof Vest from the ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' classic ''Duck Dodgers in the 24th-1/2 Century''? It can survive a blast from a Martian disintegrating pistol very well - which is more than can be said for the wearer. (Good thing the Eager Young Space Cadet had a [[Reset Button|reintegrating gun handy]].)
* Daffy Duck advertises one in the ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' episode ''The Stupor Salesman'' adding, "Guaranteed to get your money back if it fails to work!"
* Parodied in [[Robot Chicken]], where in the spoof of [[Police Academy]] and [[X -Men]] movies, one of the graduates shoots himself in the head after Xavier's introduction of the bulletproof uniforms. After which, Xavier says "Of course, they can only protect the parts of you that are covered."
* In ''[[The Simpsons]]'' episode "The Monkey Suit" Homer is shown being allowed to wear one of these and repeatedly shoot himself for the fun of it at a weapons exhibit at the local museum.
** In another episode, Chief Wiggum gets shot while trying to wrestle a gun away from a criminal. He laughs, saying, "That's what bulletproof vests are for!" -- [[Oh Crap|and then realizes that he left his vest in the car]].
* In ''[[Futurama (Animation)|Futurama]]'', in ''Bender's Big Score'', the lead nudist scammer wears a platinum doom-proof vest. So ''that's'' what the purple thing he was wearing was. Afterwards he regrets he hadn't been wearing doom-proof pants too.
** ''Futurama'' also has an odd moment when Fry becomes a cop and tries to foil Bender stealing the Maltese Liquor. The robot that predicted the robbery notes that it was a trap - then Bender gets shot by Fry accidently when his shot ricochets off the safe, and the predictor robot shoots Fry. However, it's really a sting to catch the predictor robot, since Fry reveals he's wearing a bulletproof vest, and Bender - opens his door to show his bulletproof vest with a bullet lodged in it on a clothes hanger.
* In ''[[American Dad (Animation)|American Dad]]'', Stan has to wear braces to prevent teeth grinding, making him sound like a geek. His coworkers plant a [["Kick Me" Prank|"Shoot Me"]] sign on him, and then shoot at him.
{{quote| '''Stan:''' Oh, ha ha! Very funny guys! You're lucky I'm wearing my vest!!}}
 
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