Demonization: Difference between revisions

[[File:Demonization.jpg|frame|'I am the Pope.']]

 

 

All The Tropes [[Truth in Television|is the devil]]. It teaches our children [[Fetish Fuel|it's okay to be aroused by filth]]. It wants to make [[Tropes Will Ruin Your Life|everyone in the world fat and lazy]], [[All the Tropes Will Ruin Your Vocabulary|pollutes the English language even more than Internet speak]] and unlike those [[The Aggressive Drug Dealer|evil drug dealers]], they will actually admit they want to ruin your life!<ref>No wait, [[All the Tropes Ruined Your Life (Darth Wiki)|they already did!]]</ref> Self-identity is discouraged among the members of this cult, to the point where personal pronouns and references to oneself are [[Natter|actively]] discouraged. [[We All Live in America|It's]] [[Eagle Land|anti-American]].

Of course none of that is true, or completely true, but that's how '''Demonization''' works. It's about twisting facts, or making them up, to make something look worse. Sometimes it can actually go as far claiming something is satanic, but usually it's more down to earth. Either way, these claims are made either without proof, or counter to actual evidence.

 

 

No, you want people to hate this thing. So you will do whatever you can to make this thing seem truly evil. It kills people (based on one or two deaths, that were quickly proven unrelated)! It ruined a nation (was coincidentally a fad in a country just before a coup d'etat)! God told you it's the sign of the devil (but somehow didn't tell anyone else, if it was that important)! If it is a race, a nation, or another group of people, they are [[Exclusively Evil]]!

 

 

A [[Super-Trope]] to [[Attack of the Political Ad]], [[Ron the Death Eater]].

 

{{examples}}

* Invoked in ''[[Code Geass]]'' with a character getting himself basically nicknamed "Lelouch the Demon".

 

* [[Chick Tract]]s are infamous for this, often literally tying anything Chick doesn't like (for example, [[Dungeons & Dragons]] or rock and roll) to Satan. Semi-justified; he thinks the things he's demonizing are truly demonic...which is still cold comfort in some cases.

* ''[[Cerebus]]'' does this to the ''entire female gender'' for the last third or so of its run (very arguably earlier).

** Admittedly, the Wolfriders have a tendency to make this reputation for themselves in their early history, when harassing humans was something they did for fun.

 

* ''[[Sword of Truth]]'' does this simultaneously to communism and theism by having the main villains of the series be an evil [[The Empire|empire]] set out to conquer all of the world and force their fundamentalist religion and bureaucratic soviet economy upon it.

* ''[[Paradise Lost]]'' does this the most literal way possible, identifying the gods from the other religions of the ancient Levant as higher ranked of Satan.

* ''[[In Death]]'': Defense attorneys tend be subjected to this. Then again, the story is told from the perspective of a cop who arrests criminals and then has to testify against them, so....

 

* An episode of ''[[Forever Knight]]'' had a flashback in which Hitler was portrayed as a man so full of evil that it made him [[Even Evil Has Standards|too evil to turn into a vampire]].

 

* "Phantoms Of Death" by [[Helloween]].

 

* This also happens in-game in ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' as one of the Thoughts of the Day demonstrates:

{{quote|A logical argument must be dismissed with absolute conviction.}}

* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' was subjected to this in the 80's and early 90's from Christian groups (most notably [[Jack Chick]] and Patricia Pulling, the founder of [[Fun with Acronyms|Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons]]) believing the game encouraged witchcraft, satanism, suicide, and all sorts of other horrible things. It got to the point where TSR (the game's publisher at the time) removed demons, devils, and other monsters from the line (mostly by renaming them into tanar'ri and baatezu), stopped to call shamans "wicca" and funding studies to counter the claims.

 

* In ''[[Psychonauts]]'' {{spoiler|Raz's dad, Augustus Aquato}} is said to hate psychics, among other things, his image in {{spoiler|Oleander and Raz's head, merged together}}, shows this quite a bit. {{spoiler|"Man do I hate Psychics, and seeing my son happy!"}} The real version is, of course, ''nothing'' like that; in fact, he is horrified when he sees the mental image. {{spoiler|"Rasputin, is that really how you think of me? [[Comically Missing the Point|Come on! I have WAY more hair than that!]]"}}

* A well-popularized example: Back in the late nineties, there was some backlash against ''[[Pokémon]]'' by varying [[Moral Guardians|fundamentalist groups]], who claimed that the games (and related series) promoted violence and occult imagery. Notably, the ''Vatican'' publicly defended ''Pokémon'' from these detractors. More specifically, the Vatican defended ''Pokémon'' on the issue of evolution, of all things.

* Done in-game to [[Ratchet and Clank]] in ''[[Ratchet: Deadlocked]]'', although the audience isn't falling for it. This demonization reaches [[Implausible Deniability]] when kids clearly cheering for Ratchet are dubbed over on the show.

 

* In ''[[Drawn Together]]'', virtually every character with conservative viewpoints are often portrayed as ignorant, racist, homophobic, overzealous religious nutjobs, or otherwise just plain heartless or hypocritical. Clara often exhibited such traits, especially in later episodes, and even antagonized some of the main characters due to her remarkably intolerant political and religious views. On the other hand, while other main characters certainly had unlikeable aspects to their personality, they're not nearly as close-minded (aside from the occasional joke about Xandir's sexuality) and Foxxy (one of the more liberal characters on the show) is often depicted as the voice of reason.

* Similar to the above example is ''[[Family Guy]]''. Conservatives, Christians, pro-lifers, and in general, people who don't agree with the writers' political views get this treatment, which unfortunately, affected the show's quality. In fact, that's why the infamous episode "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven" is so reviled: Christians are portrayed as zealous, ignorant and extremely intolerant.

* [[Exaggerated Trope|Exaggerated]] in the ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|Simpsons]]'' episode "Sideshow Bob Roberts", which depicts the Springfield Republican Party as zealots who hold meetings (prefaced by a round of [[Ominous Latin Chanting]]) in an ominous castle straight out of a [[Hammer Horror]] film, and who at one point confuse a water cooler with their mayoral candidate.

 

* One of the old ones is "Black Legend", from England. Because everything would be just peachy in Americas - if not for those dastardly Spaniards who wrecked everything and slaughtered everyone.

* [[Scare Campaign]]s tend to be made of this trope.

** A good example of this is can be found on [[RationalWiki]]. The portrayal of Objectivists as insane, immoral cult members who worship cigarettes like they worship their atheist god seems like a parody written by a very unimaginative Objectivist wanting to smear his opponents by portraying them as simple minded children lacking any real arguments, and the pages are guarded with a passion and reverted back to their current versions very quickly if anyone tries to make them more... [[Irony|Rational.]] Who knew that that website coined the term [[Poe's Law]].

* Some portrayals of [[Adolf Hitler]] forget that he was still a ''man,'' not some kind of ultimate incarnation of evil.

* Examples of this can be found on all sides of religious debates. Many groups are simultaneously victims and perpetrators.

* [[New Media Are Evil]]: Various new forms of media get subjected to this by people who hate it, and the demonization never truly ends.

** Television is often faced with this, which has led to a number of tropes (such as [[Bowdlerise]]) in an attempt to dodge demonization.

** [[Video Games]]. After any school shooting or random act of violence, it's not uncommon to hear the "and he played violent video games" line broken out.

* Scientology is famous for its hatred of psychiatry. Many people on the Internet are also extremely negative toward Scientology, to the point that many people paint the group as a blatant [[Cult of Happyology]] one step above sacrificing people to [[L. Ron Hubbard]], who gets plenty of this himself.

* Many of the louder and more extreme animal rights groups tend to demonize anyone who eats meat. Annoyed omnivores often react by demonizing all animal rights groups, vegetarians, etc.

* [[Oda Nobunaga]]. The amount of media portraying him as a devil incarnate far outweighs the same portraying him in a sympathetic light.

* All abortion opponents are backwards misogynists hellbent on reproductive slavery. All abortion advocates are enthusiastic child-murderers and will ''force'' you to abort your child.

* Demonizing the Japanese has been a pretty heated subject that tends to show up every decade or so:

** During the 40's, American propaganda portrayed the Japanese were portrayed as insects, mice, rats, inhuman beasts, or unflattering caricatures of Emperor Hirohito (most famously in the [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/3/33/20100125180549!Tokio_Kid_Say.png Tokio Kid] posters.

** In the 80s, when Japan was experiencing a period of economic wealth and proceeded to buy buildings and land from American developers, along with building tons of factories, a resounding cry of "THEY'RE TEKKIN OUR JERBS" was heard from coast to coast, and fearmongering news reports that [[Japan Takes Over the World|Asian people were only in your town to buy it up]] and evict everyone were prevalent.

* When [[Michael Jackson]]'s ''Invincible'' didn't sell as well as he'd hoped, he claimed to the press and his fans that his label Sony Music's head Tommy Mottola was racist: "He's a mean [sic], he's a racist, and he's very, very, very devilish." This [http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1455976/20020708/jackson_michael.jhtml backfired instantly]. In a related issue, since Jackson's death a [[Vocal Minority]] of his fans (the website [http://www.innermichael.com InnerMichael.com] is a good example) likes to demonize the mass media as bloodthirsty, racist jackals who caricatured Jackson as a "freak" to make money; this carries on from Jackson's constant complaining about the media in his lifetime to the point that he wrote multiple songs on the subject. Of course, the fans' claims require Jackson to be elevated to the level of [[Too Good for This Sinful Earth]]...

* Talk Radio hosts and cable news networks. All of them have political slants, it's the nature of the beast, but to hear people of either political leaning, the outlets that are proponents of the other side are just plain evil and guilty of the worst forms of treason. Of course, the ones they agree with are just here to save the country.

* On that note, a number of mythological figures were quite literally demonized by later religions - depictions of [[Satan]] for example, give him [[Prongs of Poseidon]] and the goat-features of the Greek god Pan.

** On ''that'' note, even the term "demon" was demonized, thanks to early Christianity and Judaism. [[wikipedia:Daimon|The original Greek]] ''[[wikipedia:Daimon|daimon]]'' sometimes (maybe even most of the time) referred to a ''[[wikipedia:Demon#Terminology|good]]'' spirit.

** Speaking of Snopes, their crew came to hate satire site ''[http://thepeoplescube.com/ People's Cube]'' to such a ridiculous degree that they avoid referring to it by name even while accusing it in spreading malware.

* Interestingly, averted in German [[World War I]] propaganda in favor of ridicule. Germany's opponents were depicted in caricatures like "the Russians are totally uncultured, the French are [[Anything That Moves|only thinking about one thing]], the Brits are greedy, and generally all of them are incompetent cowards, lead by [[Manipulative Bastard]]s". Lead to [[Fridge Logic]] among German people, because if German soldiers are that great, and everyone else ''isn't'', why didn't they win the war in six weeks like the politicians said they would?!

* The standard response of ''any'' conspiracy theorist to ''anyone'' that publicly disagrees with them or refutes their arguments: Expand the conspiracy to make the critic the newest player.

* The Dutch politician Geert Wilders has used "I'm being demonized" as a tagline for a while. Many of his opponents thought it was funny, since he's not exactly known for being entirely politically correct about everyone himself.

 

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[[Category:Meta Concepts]]

[[Category:Bad Writing Index]]

[[Category:The War On Straw]]